


Take It Back Now Y'all

by TimTheToaster (tabletoptime)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: BAMF Tim Drake, Canon-Typical Violence, Just So We're Clear, Slow Burn, Tim Drake-centric, Time Travel, but more like Tim's normal than Bruce's, i'm just gonna slide in the, more tags as the situation develops, other batfam will apear, tag because this is going to be a long build-up to Something, the OCs are kind of filler but also not if that makes sense, tim just has to figure his stuff out first, to call this a fix-it is disingenuous but it is in the spirit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-01-05 13:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 48,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21208958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabletoptime/pseuds/TimTheToaster
Summary: There was absolutely no way this sunshine was from Gotham in April.Not possible.Which meant, Tim was no longer in Gotham, in April.(In which Tim finds himself in the past, and tries to do the right thing. It's more complicated than he'd like.)





	1. Chapter 1

There was absolutely no way this sunshine was from Gotham in April.

Not possible. 

Which meant, Tim was no longer in Gotham, in April. 

One deep breath confirmed it to be Gotham’s particular tangy chemical smog (though even that seemed lighter, was it a trick of the sun or was the air actually different? He needed a lab to check), so he hadn’t moved much geographically, but that still left the problem of the weather. 

If Tim had to hazard a guess, he would call this early June, before the serious summer storms and the heat picked up enough to dye the sky interesting colours through the city’s miasma. The question, then, was if he had lost time, or gained it. 

At least he was in costume, so he had something in the way of resources. Enough to get him started, though certainly not enough to establish a base of operations if his luck was as bad as usual. Tim wasn’t holding out hope for things to be easy. They rarely were.

Cape and cowl weren’t conducive to wandering the streets during the day, so he was going to have to sneakily swap those out for a jacket. His armoured leggings and boots could pass as normal pants in a pinch, but there was no way he could pretend either the tunic or the undersuit shirt weren’t part of a costume. They were also nearly skintight, and he’d feel weird wearing them casually.

So, a jacket.

He ducked deeper back into the alley he had awoken in and scaled the fire escape to the roof, sticking to the shadows as best he could. A glance around put him a couple blocks over from where he had last thought he was, on the edge of the South City Park. Not a great area to find clothes unless he was willing to raid someone’s picnic.

…

He was gonna have to raid someone’s picnic. At least he would leave a little cash behind so they could get a new one.

After very carefully scoping out the groups in the park (and there were a lot of them, mostly families, so it was probably a Sunday while Tim had been pretty sure it was a Friday night), Tim decided he could take a track jacket from a family that looked comfortably middle class. It might have something to do with the fact that it was a black jacket with red accents. Tim admitted nothing.

Cape folded and tucked away in his harness, which he was wearing as a rather tacky layered belt, and jacket zipped despite the heat, Tim stepped onto the streets of Midtown proper.

He had a lot of investigating to do before nightfall.

\--

The good news, was it didn’t take long to figure out exactly when he was. 

The newspaper boxes on 87th still had a few copies, and they were kind enough to tell him it was indeed Sunday, June 10.

The bad news was he was twelve years in the past, and with no clear explanation for  _ why _ .

He had gone back and scoured the alley he had woken up in, discreetly scanning it for any abnormal radiation, but the equipment he had on hand just didn’t have the power to detect anything in trace amounts. And if magic was involved he had nothing that would give him any indication at all.

Dick was Robin. Dick was Robin and  _ tiny _ , oh god how could Bruce have ever let him out on the streets? And the scaly panties. Tim completely understood the rumours that never went away about the exact nature of Batman and Robin’s relationship. What responsible father-figure let their child fight criminals without pants on? Bruce, apparently. 

The time period did explain why the air was cleaner; Gotham hadn’t had to face years of chemical attacks yet. 

The walk through the streets was a head-trip. Stores he had only seen in their twilight days, barely managing to keep their doors open, were bustling and full. The tension in people’s shoulders was lighter, not gone- this was still Gotham- but looking out for pickpockets, not mass shootings. Half the places he passed that would one day be safe houses in condemned buildings were still full apartment complexes. 

The next question was how was Tim supposed to get home? This was well before time travel was a regular part of anyone’s day-to-day, and it wasn’t like Tim knew much about it. He could work the technology when it was in front of him, but actually building it? He had left sourcing the equipment to Booster Gold, Rip Hunter, and his buddies when rescuing Bruce from the timestream. 

It would take years of research to build a time machine.

Gotham had never been a shining bastion, and Tim knew the crime statistics over the last three decades by heart. This period, the first few years of Batman and Robin’s presence on the streets, was the lowest Gotham’s stats had been since the murder of the Waynes. It was just before things started to get crazy in terms of costumed lunatics. Oh, there were a few running around, but even the ones there were hadn’t escalated to big double digit kill counts yet. Yet.

Maybe he could try and get the Flash to run him home.

Except he was pretty sure Barry’s only run-ins with time travel thus far had been very very unpleasant, so he really wasn’t likely to give Tim the time of day if he asked. While it was tempting to try and force him, there was no way that would end well. Frankly, trying without a cosmic treadmill was asking for trouble anyways.

There was paranoia, and suspicion, but there was also a certain spiteful hope to the people he passed. It was something that got the city through No Man’s Land, but Tim hadn’t seen much of since. The faith that the world would be okay even if they had to drag it there, kicking and screaming. Gothamites had traded that brutal belief for survival and the bitter refusal to roll over and die. While it did the job, Tim had missed the streetside optimism as his own had dwindled.

He could try and get the time authorities to give him a ride, but how to contact them?

The fastest way was just to fuck with the timeline and hope they noticed, which. Was not ideal for a number of reasons. But it might be kind of fun, and they would make sure he didn’t break reality for the worse or anything. 

That didn’t mean he was going to just go nuts and murder people, but he could let loose a little, right? Just until the Time Masters noticed.

\--

There was no way it was this easy to set himself up in Gotham. No way he could just walk into a warehouse and threaten the criminals inside into leaving. Sure he had to punch a few guys, but between some spooky shadows from the rafters and a smoke pellet, he hadn’t had to pull out his staff before they ran, tails between their legs.

Even the criminals were less hardened in this time. It made his chest ache.

With his newly acquired warehouse, Tim had some decisions to make.

He could try and play it sneaky, interfere with events he knew were to come, for the better. Or he could generate his own entirely new events. The latter option would stand out more, but only because it was much riskier. The likelihood of damaging the timeline was higher if he actually added things rather than just tweaked events that were already settled in place. So really his best bet would be the former.

It would probably be less fun.

It also suggested that a warehouse might not be the best place to be operating out of. Still, he could keep an eye on this one and re-appropriate it if his needs veered further towards big spaces and storage. For now he probably needed an apartment or something less explicitly sketchy.

Responsibility came first, so Tim supposed he’d have to be smart about this.

In the interest of pretending to be an actual member of society, Tim was going to need some capital. His skin crawled at the possibility of getting an actual job, so he was either going to do some creative lying, or some “unlicensed resource reallocation.” The lying would most likely victimize whatever Gothamites he had to, and, while statistically they probably had it coming, he could instead deliberately target an asshole. Tim checked the charge on his overpowered tablet (he had around twenty-seven hours), piggybacked onto a particularly obnoxious satellite, and set to work.

Lex Luthor had the cash to burn.

Now, it was towards the end of Dick’s first year as Robin, and there weren’t a ton of events that stood out during the next few months. The one that did… Had been kind of formative for Dick as a vigilante, Tim knew. 

Two Face.

A little resigned to leaving the warehouse for later, Tim set up some proximity alarms and traps around the doors and windows, and hit the streets again. There weren’t really many apartment listings online so he’d have to see what he could find on foot. And he’d feel bad signing a lease on a nice place and then just disappearing. So he’d see what he could find in the neighborhoods where no one would say anything if he walked out and never came back.

The Narrows, Crime Alley, Old Gotham, the Bowery. Real party places.

Did Tim have the right to mess with an event that had shaped his older brother as a crime fighter, and started the conflict that set Bruce and Dick apart for years?

At least Tim was confident in his abilities to handle his own security, and hey, maybe he could offer to improve the landlord’s for cheaper rent. Except that offer in Gotham was likely to get him suspicion and firmly told to fuck off. Maybe he’d just do it discreetly anyways. 

On the other hand, Tim had the chance here to lessen his big brother’s suffering, even just a little bit, and touching on an event that mattered ought to put him on anyone monitoring the timestream’s radar. It was too tempting to pass up. 

Kind of like this little vacancy sign. Sign was a little generous, it was a piece of paper taped to the inside of a window on the ground floor. A rundown apartment block Tim remembered buying after it was condemned and remodeling into a Neon Knights center. Two blocks over from Crime Alley proper, which meant it was unlikely to get many Bat sightings. Bruce was sore about patrolling this area until Jason. 

And then again, after Jason. 

The specifics of the situation weren’t as airtight as Tim would have liked. He was going to need a much better grasp on the details of the Gotham mob scene if he wanted to know what he could and couldn’t afford to change. At the very least he’d like to avoid or minimize the time Dent spent kicking the shit out of Dick. And hopefully, you know, save the judge’s life. But Tim really wasn’t sure he could get away with both without there being major ripples.

The landlady gave him a suspicious look when he haggled her on the rent and then offered to pay the first two months, but she just snapped a warning about not bringing any business home with him and that he would be charged for any smoke damage. At least she hadn’t cut power to his unit yet, so the lights would work. He’d get a bill at the end of the month. Gas and water were his problem, which would be fun without a legal identity. 

Apparently Tim looked like he was in a gang. Maybe it was the jacket? 

He wasn’t sure that he could just let those events play out when he knew he could stop them.

Tim had spent most of the past few years refusing to let bad things happen where he could make a difference. Was giving that up selfless, fighting his instincts to preserve the timeline, or selfish, refusing to help those in need, for the hope it would get him home? In fact, did Tim even have the right to go home from here? There was so much  _ good  _ he could do, and all it would cost was his whole life. But.

That was the Mission, right?

Standing alone in an empty apartment; two rooms, a hallway, and a bathroom, Tim kind of wanted to cry. The one room had a stove-top oven on the wall, a sink, some cupboards, the fixtures for a fridge, and about sixty five square feet. The bedroom had a window and a closet. The bathroom had a standing shower, a sink, and a toilet. Over all, not the worst place Tim had ever stayed, but something about the shitty linoleum and stained carpet wrapped tight around his throat.

There was a need, and Tim had honed himself into the kind of person who fulfilled needs when he was still just a kid. From there, others had done a lot of the shaping, to remake him to suit themselves, whether they knew it or not. The only problem was Tim wasn’t entirely certain what exactly the need here was.

Gotham was  _ mostly  _ fine right now. As fine as it ever got. 

But Two Face was going to murder a judge and beat Robin. And the gang violence was going to stew and froth and kill people. Destroy families. Batman would fight it, save lives everywhere he could, but people would die. To drugs, guns, chemicals, and supervillains. 

One day Robin would die.

They couldn’t save everyone. 

But they had to try.

That was the mantra that kept Tim moving in the face of grief, time and again. 

He’d try to get home, but he couldn’t turn his back on all these people he had a second chance to save. He couldn’t let them die a second time without even trying.

Tim laid out his belt and harness, unpacking their compartments to do a full inventory. He plugged his tablet into one of the wall outlets. He opened a file for all of the security features he needed to implement and databases he needed to re-hack.

Best to get started, there was a lot to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's happening, and my life is spiraling out of control. At least I'm posting regularly(ish). University, though. Is unimpressed with me. My second round of midterms approaches and I may vanish for a while, we'll see.
> 
> I've been thinking about this AU for an embarrassingly long time, so I am very pleased to get something out for it. Where is it going, well I'm not trying to be subtle, but I'm also not giving the game away yet. Soon. 
> 
> Once again, many thanks to ReplacementRobin for talking shop with me, and Capes and Coffee for keeping me generally on topic.
> 
> Please do leave a comment, or kudos, or even just think positive thoughts at me if you liked it. Everything is appreciated :)


	2. Chapter 2

Tim was in the zone and four hours into his online crusade, ignoring the niggling thought that he was going to need a bigger computer, when a knock at his door jolted him back to his surroundings.

He was up and armed in a heartbeat, cycling through who could possibly be at his door at two in the morning. The landlady, changed her mind about letting him live here; an actual gang member, running some kind of protection racket; the authorities, looking for someone. That last one was unrealistic, this was Crime Alley. No cop with any amount of self-preservation would come here at this hour without a lot of back-up and a lot of noise.

Silently, Tim sidled to the door.

At least it had a peephole, since opening doors without looking was a great way to get shot.

Drum roll, please.

It was an old lady with a brown paper bag. Hiding a weapon maybe?

Tim took a moment to lament that he had to wonder if old ladies were trying to kill him, then he cracked the door, throwing disk ready, “Hello?”

They were about the same height, so she met his gaze head on. Her eyes were steely but warm, like a poker left too close to the hearth. “Who are you?”

“Excuse me?” Tim blinked. “You’re the one who knocked on _my_ door. What do you want?”

“I’m your neighbor across the hall. The last young man who rented this space brought to our doorstep a bomb of that awful fear gas, and then he hung himself out the window. Despite his claims, I’m fairly sure he was fifteen,” her words weren’t judgmental, but they weren’t gentle. The old Gotham accent shaped the tragedy into a fact of life. “I’ll ask again, who are you?”

Tragedies like that _were_ a fact of his life, had been since he first caught a bus into the city to chase capes, since he watched the Graysons fly and fall, but Tim didn’t like the reminder that the same was true for most Gothamites. At least he made a choice, they just lived here. “My name’s Alvin. Recently aged out of the system. Not interested in bringing any trouble home with me.”

Her stare didn’t let up. “Neither was he, and you just lied to me. Try again, boy.”

He must be more out of it than he thought if was failing to lie to geriatrics. Alvin Draper was the name he gave the landlady, so he couldn’t just drop it. Time to double down.

“Alvin_ is_ my name, but that’s stupid so I go by my middle name. Tim. Always annoyed case workers, but I’m not a goddamn chipmunk,” he shrugged. There, nice and easy with a hint of teen rebellion. It was odd to let loose the hint of inner city drawl that had mystified and infuriated his parents in equal measure, but it was the right call. Tim felt a little selfish keeping his name, but he figured the universe owed him this much.

That seemed to fly better with the woman. “I’m Maggie. The ovens are temperamental, so if you ever need help, come get me before you set the place on fire. There’s usually old furniture by the docks if you can get it back here.” She shoved the paper bag into his hands. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

With that she returned to the partially open door across the hall and disappeared. Tim heard the grind of her lock sliding shut.

Well that was. Something.

Tim retreated into his apartment and cautiously opened the paper bag. Inside was a bottle of water, a paper towel, and a small pot pie. It warmed his hands through the bag, just a little.

He wasn’t quite lucky enough to warrant a fork, nor was he heathen enough to eat it with his fingers. Convenience stores sold plastic cutlery, right? He’d just run to the 24-hour corner store and pick some up. Maybe some paper plates while he was at it.

Actually, there was a bunch of short-term necessities he should really pick up. He could do a more comprehensive shop during daylight hours. And he should also probably check out the docks for at least a table and a bed frame, since he couldn’t picture himself going furniture shopping. Tim would have to figure something out for a mattress, but he could put that off until he needed to sleep.

If he was quick the pie would still be warm when he got back.

With his mind fixed on the flaky pastry, he slid a couple twenties into his waistband (no pockets unless he was willing to wrestle with his belt and he was not) and slipped out the door, locking it more as a habit than because he thought it would help.

It was late. Prime vigilante hour, a couple hours before the criminals called it a night. Tim moved quickly since he wanted to avoid trouble, though he couldn’t deny a thrill of anticipation at the thought of a fight.

Not a great idea for lying low, but a nice pick-me-up.

Tim had passed a couple places on his early wandering, one of which had closed during his second year as Robin. Nostalgia guided his feet to it’s barred windows. This place did great calzone-things. Maybe he’d snag one, for old time’s sake.

The door opened with a _tinkle_, bells tied to the hinges, and Tim stepped under the buzzing fluorescents. A quick scan to assess the layout before he was moving; snacks near the front and in clear view of the cameras, the day to day was further inside with solid coverage, only one blind spot that contained diapers (a deliberate show of compassion, or deemed too awkward to steal?). He was still in his Red Robin boots, steps silent even on the cracked and peeling vinyl.

To the back of the store. Shelf one; paper towels and cleaning supplies. Things to come back for but not a priority. Shelf two; crackers and cheap non-perishables. Later. Shelf three though? Bingo. Paper plates, plastic cutlery, toiletries.

Tim scooped up a pack of everything on his mental list that he could carry, building a veritable jenga tower in his hands, and returned swiftly to the counter, before it could collapse. As the glazed-eyed cashier started ringing it in, Tim darted over to the heated display and slipped a calzone-thing into a pocket of grease paper. He was there and back between slow blinks.

Tired, tired eyes. “That’ll be thirty-six seventy-eight. D’ya want a bag?”

Tim handed the now-rumpled twenties over, with the Gotham equivalent of a winning smile. That was to say, a flash of teeth with only the barest implications of violence. “Please.”

Shitty plastic bag full of goods and savory pizza-affiliate, acquired.

Humming slightly under his breath, he stepped back onto the street and turned towards his apartment. Thus far the trip had taken ten minutes, so Tim was cautiously optimistic about the temperature of the pie.

With this venture successful, he had basic supplies to start him for tomorrow. Tomorrow he really ought to get his water sorted out and see what he could do about furniture. It’d be an excellent excuse to poke around the docks. Dock workers knew all the best-

The thought was cut off by a man who had been leaning in the shadows stepping into his path with what he probably thought was a menacing grin, and a knife. Did he think Tim hadn’t seen him there?

“Hey there, pretty boy. How ‘bout you hand over the bag, your wallet, and that coat, and you get home in one piece?” he leered, gaze wandering enough to tell Tim what he thought about his_ piece_.

Ew.

Still, no need to escalate just yet. “I don’t have my wallet on me, I just brought enough to pick some stuff up. I can give you three bucks in change?”

The slight wrinkle of the man’s eyebrows encouraged Tim to keep going.

He shook the bag. “There’s not even food in here; it’s toiletries, plastic forks, and paper plates. Come on, man, you gonna stab me over some deodorant?”

Knife-guy opened his mouth, brow furrowing deeper, but Tim powered on. “And I one hundred percent stole this jacket, do you really want a third-hand, double-stolen jacket that won’t even fit you?”

“I’ve had enough of your lip!” Whoops, apparently that was a step too logical for Knife-guy, who lunged forward, swinging.

Tim sidestepped the swing and drove the vee of his thumb and forefinger hard into Knife-guy’s throat, sliding behind him smoothly. Dropped the bag, then two sharp palm-strikes to the back of his neck, a stomp to the back of his knee.

To Knife-guy’s credit, he hadn’t dropped his weapon and tried to twist to slash at Tim’s ankles as he fell.

Without a blink, Tim kicked his wrist, forcing him to drop the weapon and met his temple with a heel on the backswing.

The confrontation was over in six moves and about fifteen seconds.

Sloppy.

He could have ended the fight from the front, a hit to the side of the neck would have been a faster knockout, his boots were armoured enough he could have taken the slash and just gone straight for the head. Tim heard Bruce’s voice in his head, critiquing his choices.

He’d work on it.

Tim bent to scoop the knife, because at this point all resources were good resources, when he heard quiet footsteps and the rustle of plastic behind him.

Knife in hand, he spun to see a… ten year old digging through his bag. And his calzone-thing, having spilled out and splattered onto the ground. Kid was probably looking for an alternative.

“Hey, kid,” he called to get his attention. The boy’s head snapped up, eyes wide and fixed on the knife. Tim slid it blade first into his waistband, hoping he wouldn’t have to run and risk cutting his hip. “When was the last time you ate?”

A confused little squint, that was actually pretty adorable. It was like being assessed by a hungry kitten.

“Look. I’m all for eating sidewalk-food, but I live a block and a half that way. Gimme back my bag and I’ll share my dinner.”

The kid scoffed, which rude but understandable. “You think I’m gonna fall for that?”

Tim didn’t hide his grin, sharp and a little conspiratorial. Red Robin’s smile. “There’s nothing to fall for. I’ll go first, but if you try to run with my stuff I’ll chase you to get it back. If you drop it and go, I won’t follow. The door stays open and I won’t even come close enough to touch you if you don’t want me to.”

“Promise?” He probably hadn’t meant it to sound so vulnerable, but the pleading edge to the word was a fist in Tim’s gut.

The grin slipped away and Tim met the boy’s eyes, deadly serious. “I promise.” A beat, then a little lighter, “Though I think that sidewalk-food is salvageable so I do want to grab that before we head over.”

“You’re gross. And fine, but if you touch me I’ll rip your dick off,” the kid snapped, nose scrunched.

If that wasn’t a clear and explicit boundary, Tim didn’t know what was. Hands held clearly out and open, Tim slowly approached, crouching down to wrap the fallen grease paper around the smooshed calzone-thing. Totally still edible.

Before standing he looked at the kid, only needing to look a little up, “I’m Tim, by the way. You don’t have to tell me your name, but you also don’t have to call me ‘that weird guy.’ I guess you could if you want.”

“Alright, Weird Guy, lead the way,” the kid snarked, hefting the plastic bag onto his shoulder. Okay, Tim had kind of walked into that one. But the tension in the ten year old’s stance had abated slightly, so he’d take it.

The walk back was relatively short, the only sound beyond the noises of the city being the light steps behind Tim. He very specifically didn’t look, even when they stopped. There was a near miss with another creep in an alley sizing them up, but Tim made eye contact with him and did his best to convey the sheer extent to which trying anything was a bad idea. It seemed to work, but Tim knew better than to consider the matter entirely resolved. Maybe it’d be worth building some kind of reputation if it would let him walk down the street at night without getting harassed every twenty feet.

Something to consider if he was trapped here long.

Also of concern was how his tiny tagalong was planning on getting home. No kid who was out this late had a happy, safe place to return to, Tim would know. That didn’t mean Tim could just let him wander around to get stabbed or something. Then again, it wasn’t exactly his business.

The solution came to him as it often did; asking himself _what would Bruce do?_ Well Bruce would probably implicitly threaten or intimidate the kid into slightly better behaviour and then adopt him. Offer to teach him to defend himself. He definitely would not speak to the boy’s parents, if they were even alive. There would be very little discussion in general and it would be settled before the kid knew what hit him.

Therefore, the best course of action was to not do that, ask the kid what his plans were, and offer to accompany him if his plan sucked. Possibly tail him anyways to make sure he got home safely.

Tim took a moment to be thankful for Bruce’s social incompetence as a reverse-guide, then opened his door.

And promptly realized he had forgotten his stuff was strewn across the floor.

“Shit, let me clear this crap up,” Tim said, forgoing the lights to stride inside and sweep piles of tech into belt compartments. “I’d offer you a chair or blanket or something but I got the place earlier today.”

It took Tim less than a minute to toss anything incriminating into the bedroom, though he noted he was down a throwing disk from his earlier inventory which would be fun to sneak back before the kid left, but by the time he returned the kid’s shoulders were tight again.

Not unreasonable, the empty room was kind of ominous in the dark.

With the light switch by the door, Tim couldn’t do anything about that, so he gently set Maggie’s paper bag in the middle of the room and then backed up to the far wall, retrieving the calzone-thing from where he had set it down. “In there’s a pie and a bottle of water the lady across the hall gave me. You can use the stuff in the bag to split it yourself, or you can set the bag next to it and I’ll do it.”

Slowly, like he was trying to both be cautious and not seem afraid, the boy moved to the paper bag and poked it open, flinching away like he expected it to explode. This was Gotham, maybe he did. After a second with no consequences, he peeked inside and Tim could practically _see_ his salivary reflex activating. He looked up quickly at Tim, then back down and swallowed. He carefully placed the plastic bag on the floor and retreated to the doorway.

A distinct burnished gold edge was just visible at the lip of his pocket.

Keeping his gaze on the bags, Tim crossed the room and knelt down. He took out the paper plates and cutlery, and very carefully split the pie into two pieces, one noticeably larger than the other. There was a slight intake of breath from ahead of him, disappointment in a sigh. Then Tim placed the pieces onto separate plates and pulled back to the wall with one in hand.

“Are you serious?” the boy breathed, like he was looking for the other shoe before it could drop.

No mockery, no joke, Tim met his eyes with level-headed honesty. He nodded, slowly and clearly. “No trick. Do you want me to take a bite first?”

Faster than Tim had seen him move yet, the boy darted forward, grabbing the plate with the larger chunk of oozing pie and a fork. This time, he turned around to return to his place at the threshold.

Tim hated to take advantage of what little trust the boy had given him in looking away, but the opportunity was right there. Channeling every second of stealth training he had ever received, Tim was up and behind the kid in a moment. Free hand- shit he was holding the fork, Tim shoved it in his mouth and cushioned the prongs with his tongue to keep it quiet- _newly_ free hand angled with all the skill of a practiced pickpocket to slide the disk out without touching denim.

The window was closing fast, so Tim dipped back to the wall through the shadows that dominated the room. He dropped into a relaxed criss-cross against the wall, without the hall light shining in his eyes and disk hidden beneath him, and took a bite of the pie.

Just in time for the boy to turn back to him.

Suspicion still present, but with a little more openness in his posture, the boy sat down just inside the doorway, out of the shaft of light and parallel to Tim. He took a small bite. Quietly, barely loud enough for Tim to hear him at all, “My name is Luke.”

Just this once, Tim had gotten lucky. The pie was still warm.

Tim carefully swallowed and decided to press his good luck, “Nice to meet you Luke. Do you have a safe place to spend the night?”

Luke’s little fist was white-knuckled around the fork, like it would try to run if he let it. He didn’t break eye contact. “Yes.”

That was a lie.

It was too early to offer to let him sleep here. Luke wouldn’t say yes and Tim may never see him again.

“I’m going looking for furniture by the docks tomorrow. I’ll stop by the store on 83rd where I picked up this thing,” he tapped the unfortunate calzone. “At four. If you’re willing to help me get a table and bed frame across the city and up those stairs, I’ll order pizza for us both. Maybe some chairs too. Sound fair?”

“I can’t carry stuff that far.”

Tim shook his head. “That’s fine. I can’t either. I’m gonna try and borrow a pallet dolly or something. More reasonable?”

Sharp brown eyes met Tim’s blue-grey. “Yeah.”

They didn’t speak again as they finished their food, but Luke did wave slightly before he left, closing the door behind him.

Tim settled back against the wall, exhaling softly. He pulled the disk out from beneath him and spun it on a finger, mind rolling around the statistics on homeless children in Crime Alley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!!
> 
> Today we get Tim's first foray into his new neighbourhood. This boy has no idea what he's doing. It'll be fine.
> 
> Thanks as always to ReplacementRobin for letting me rant and you and all the encouragement.


	3. Chapter 3

There weren’t any windows in the main room of Tim’s apartment, which was an unexpected point in its favour for security, but it also meant Tim had very little indication of time passing. Thankfully, he had set an alarm for exactly that reason.

In the hours between Luke leaving and his alarm going off at 8:00, Tim resisted the urge to digitally stalk the boy, and instead looked into the birth records for the low income neighbourhoods across the city in the last seventeen years. Annoyingly, he could tell a lot of the digital records were lacking or incomplete so he would probably need to do some footwork at registrars offices to establish a full list.

He also compared them with filed missing reports and death certificates. 

That slimmed the number down a distressing amount.

There really wasn’t any good infrastructure or programs to keep track of Gotham’s scattered youth. Neon Knights had been meant to help with that, but here over a decade before it’s inception there weren’t even accurate population records. 

Tim had to bite down a snarl at the disparity between projected population growth (and the resulting municipal budgeting), and the reality of Gotham’s streets. Money went into corporate agreements with the city council, often corporations who had a partner _on_ the council. Of course there were people profiting from the bullshit data. It felt like all his work to make things better had meant nothing.

Because here and now, it did. He had to start over, with none of the resources or allies.

There were currently approximately seventeen _thousand_ homeless and unsheltered kids across Gotham. Without some kind of targeted system, there was no way he could really help a decent fraction of that. The homeless shelters reported an additional thirty-eight thousand staying under their “care.”

He had about four months before winter started to set in. That would have to be his timeline for getting some kind of provisional set up. Maybe a series of marked shelters with regularly stocked supplies inside. If he could draw on the kind of spirit that rebuilt Gotham after the Quake he might even be able to make it self-sustaining… 

A nifty side project, and a chance to make meaningful _change_.

The confrontation with Two Face however was sooner than that so he should probably refocus. 

The internet had a lot less to offer these days, but it wasn’t useless. Tim was able to gain access to the city’s admittedly garbage CCTV system and started poking around. 

Apparently Cobblepot was an idiot who didn’t take down the camera in the alley behind the Iceberg Lounge. It hadn’t been there when Tim was Robin, so he had to wonder how much use B got out of it before Cobblepot finally caught on. Tim set up a zip file to store recordings from that camera, since he was inevitably going to have to blackmail the Penguin for something.

After about forty minutes of flipping through cameras and starting recordings at key sites, Tim admitted defeat. There really wasn’t much that would tell him about Two Faces movements. He couldn’t even check shipping records since those were still just paper copies in the harbour master’s office. 

Someone really needed to go through the city records with a scanner.

At the thought, his tablet started up with the obnoxiously upbeat jingle Dick changed his alarms to whenever he got his hands on it. 

Tim rolled his shoulders and rubbed at his eyes. He really ought to sleep, or at least get some coffee. At some point he had finished the calzone, though he couldn’t quite remember doing that. It was fine, he’d pick something up on his way to the docks.

Speaking of, he had better start heading there if he wanted to actually find furniture on top of intel. He would be tempted to put it off, but he had promised Luke. And he didn’t really want to sleep on the floor if he could avoid it.

Knees clicking quietly at the movement, Tim stood up and left his tablet on so it could continue working through databases while he was out. He scooped up the jacket and tugged it on. Right he should also pick up some clothes. Oh god his leggings were probably stuck to his legs at this point, getting out of them was going to _suck_. And the smell in his boots. Changing was going to be an unpleasant experience.

Future Tim problems.

He shuffled the tasks in his head around into some semblance of order, and considered his belts. Would he need them? Maybe not _all_ of them, but there were a lot of unknowns and Tim would always rather be over prepared than under. Even if wearing them all layered looked stupid. 

He would have been such a good boy scout. 

Alas, he’d decided chasing vigilantes through the streets with a camera was a better use of his time.

Carrying basically the entirety of his worldly possessions, Tim locked his apartment behind him and set off in the direction of the docks.

It was early enough a fair number of people were on their way to work, or on their way home after a night out, though Tim let himself be a little judgy about people who were apparently partying on a Monday. Whatever got them through the week, he guessed, but still. Monday.

Only a block and a half from his apartment there was a line-up on the sidewalk leading into… a cafe? The line was moving relatively steadily, but it was more than a little odd for there to be this much attention given to one place. People were walking in and walking right back out, with a pastry and coffee in hand. Very fast service. 

Suspiciously fast? 

No, not everything was illegal, sometimes there were just great local cafes that made themselves into a staple of their community. Even in Gotham. 

He’d keep an eye on it anyways.

The rest of the trip down was relatively peaceful, with an average amount of traffic-based yelling, and Tim stopping at a chain coffee shop for a drink and a muffin. Sketchy giant corporations may be, but at least he knew Starbucks almost definitely didn’t have a meth lab in the basement. He kinda hated that he had to have the qualifiers.

He passed more than a couple of thrift stores where he could probably grab clothes, but lugging them around all day sounded awful so he’d put that one off until later. His to-do list was getting worryingly long, but he’d manage.

The docks themselves were bustling, cargo being loaded and unloaded, instructions and confirmation barked back and forth, and that both made things easier and more difficult. Easy to walk around unnoticed, but odds weren’t great that anywhere was empty enough he could just sneak in. Unless…

\--

Tim was going to be smelling of the bay for weeks. 

But hey, score one for creativity and water-proof belts. As always, the actual construction of the docks was shoddy and the office buildings were built on top of the dock, so all Tim had to do was go under and then deconstruct his way in. 

The office wasn’t exactly empty, but one guy engrossed in trying to get Windows XP to run wasn’t going to see anything Tim didn’t want him to see. He clearly had enough problems as it was, Tim would spare him the stress of one more. It’s not like he was _stealing_ anything anyways.

Tim had come up well behind the man on the computer, and there were filing cabinets to his right where, hopefully, the deliveries for the last week were left on top to be filed away by Wednesday. That was the harbour master’s schedule eight years from now, at least. There was a concern that the man could be more on top of his filing in his younger age, but Tim was banking on the rule about old dogs and new tricks.

Very carefully angling himself so he didn’t drip on the floor, Tim crept to the corner. The filing cabinet was old even now, so it was with very precise hands he lifted the folder off the top. This thing was notorious for creaking when it was so much as looked at when Tim had to steal from it as Robin.

There had been a delivery of lumber and construction materials under one ‘Darren Hartly’ that had left the docks but whoever picked it up never checked in. The inventory and make of the ship from the delivery itself also seemed to suggest the vessel was either transporting well below capacity, or there was some other cargo not listed. That wasn’t suspicious at-

“For fuck’s sake! Fuck it, fuck this damned box, and fuck Bill fucking Gates! I’ll keep fucking paper records, arthritis be damned, if it means I can throw this piece of shit in the fucking water.”

Whoops, apparently Tim’s time was very suddenly up because the harbour master threw his mouse across the room and was standing up.

Well it’s not like he had anything to lose at this point, he’d already got what he came for. 

Tim slipped the folder back on the cabinet, roughly how he’d found it, and turned to face the harbour master, carefully blocking his view of the hole in the floor. What was his name again? Harold something?

“Sorry to interrupt, but I know a thing or two about computers. Any chance I could help you out?” Tim sidled forward, letting his shoulders pull together and his head tilt sheepishly. _Just your friendly, local, soaking-wet IT guy. Nothing sketchy here._

“Who the fuck are you and how did you get in here?” snapped Harold… Diaz? “And why the fuck are you wet?”

_Hook._

Awkward laugh, hand to the back of the neck, _not a threat, not a threat._ “I fell off the dock on the way over here? I managed to get out of the water before anyone noticed, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread it around since I know some of the guys. I’m looking for work, and someone mentioned you were trying to digitize your record keeping?”

“What are you suggesting?” Diaz ran an assessing eye over his drowned-rat appearance. He clearly didn’t trust him, even if he no longer looked a step away from attacking him. Or calling the cops.

_Line._

“I can set up your computer to filter docking requests so you only have to see requested changes to the schedule and to automatically add anything you approve. I can also set up your email so you don’t have to sort through junk mail to find relevant documents.” Wait, too formal, Harold was tensing up again. A deliberate stumble over words, let the accent slip and throw in a swear. “In r-, I mean if you want legal shit I can sign an NDA and spend a day or two getting the rest of your records entered into your system.” Tim gave him the troublemaker-with-a-heart-of-gold grin he picked up from Dick, despite the Tim WayneTM trying to surface at the scent of a business transaction.

Suspicion warred with the inherent Gotham desire to not have wasted money. Come on, inner-Scrooge. 

“How much do you want for this, and what am I supposed to do if it breaks?” he finally snarled, still on the offensive.

_Sinker._

Tim didn’t let the triumph into his smile. Equalize, let him negotiate to save his pride, despite it already being over. “Market price for a tech consultant is about forty an hour, and based on what you’ve got I can do the initial set-up in about two, but the data entry will take longer. Is that cabinet all you’ve got?” He received a nod. “Cool, I can probably get that entered in three. I can also come back once a week to confirm nothing’s fucked up, no charge unless I need to do something?”

“Forty an hour? Fuck off. What’s to stop you making sure something is fucked up every week?” That was a very good question, for someone who actually wanted to make money off of tech support. For a guy just trying to get an in for regular access to intel, not so much.

“There are a lot of businesses and services in Gotham that are still paper-based because no one can be bothered to put all those hard-copies into software. I’m looking to exploit that opening in as many places as I can. If what I build for you doesn’t work, tell people. In fact, I’ll take thirty-five per hour of work for you if you _do_ tell people when it turns out my system doesn’t suck.”

Some probably misguided math went on behind Diaz’s eyes. People in the future barely valued tech consultants time, there was no way someone at this point would want to pay what the labour was actually worth. Especially not someone who considered ‘work’ mostly in the context of dockwork. Still, Tim owed it to all the real tech consultants out there to not set too low a bar, even if he wasn’t really relying on this for an income. 

“Make it twenty-five and get it done by Wednesday,” shot back Diaz.

“I can build the program today and come do the records tomorrow, but it’s thirty or you can keep bitching about the arthritis until one of the bosses everyone knows do business here takes both your hands to shut you up,’ Tim said, letting himself reflect back the shrewd spite.

He got an eyebrow for that, and what he was pretty sure was a flash of respect. Maybe there was something to Jason’s incessantly nasty attitude. “Fine, but if this thing don’t work you won’t be touching another computer in this city, you hear me?”

This was better than his best-case scenario heading out this morning. Tim would have the dock schedules first and without having to do any kind of regular espionage. Nothing was going to be going in or out of this harbour legally without him knowing. For his next trick, he’d just need to set up a system to monitor all the undeclared goods. 

Tim glanced at the cheap clock on the wall. “It’s officially 9:03, I’ll start now and if you’re not still here when I leave, I’ll leave a note on your desk with the time I left. We can do the details of payment tomorrow before I start the data entry.”

If he was done by eleven, he’d have plenty of time to find furniture, and procure some means of its transport before meeting up with Luke. Worse comes to worst, he may end up borrowing a car from an unsuspecting citizen, which wouldn’t set a great example, but it would make his life easier. 

Decisions, decisions.

\--

Windows XP was a motherfucker. 

After ninety minutes of wrestling it into submission, almost immediately going straight to the OS to build from scratch rather than mess around with the unresponsive and imprecise applications, he had a program that was explicit and intuitive enough even Diaz should have little problem using it. 

Tim kind of wondered if it had always been this annoying and clunky, or if he’d just been spoiled by Babs’ custom systems and his own extensive shortcuts.

Probably the latter, but still. 

Now, should he stay and pretend to work for the next half hour to fill the time slot he claimed he would need, or should he get started on that furniture hunting? Tim had a theory or two about where exactly Maggie had been referring to, but he couldn’t recall any particular place that was a dumping site for old furniture. 

To hell with it, Tim needed a nap before meeting up with Luke anyways. He’d find the stuff and head home to get at least a couple hours of rest before extensive manual labour.

Diaz was outside, yelling at people about… something, so Tim scribbled the time on a post-it, and stuck it to the monitor. His knees were not impressed with being still so long, complaining loudly when he stood up, but he pushed through the ache to walk.

Something nagged at him as he approached the door. 

Oh, right. The hole in the floor. Best to fix that now and pretend it never happened. It hadn’t seem like Diaz had noticed, which didn’t exactly speak well of him. Tim didn’t have a hammer, so he just used his collapsed bo to knock the nails into place, trying to be as quiet as possible. On the upside, he wasn’t likely to need to do this again since he had a wonderful opportunity to regularly check in. And because he had set up a very discreet link to his own system that would let him monitor the schedule whenever he wanted.

This time when he stood up, Tim’s vision grayed for a moment, and he had to lock his knees to keep from swaying. That narrowed his timeline somewhat.

Tim exited onto the docks, mostly dry now, and headed for his first point of interest. There was a series of dumpsters at one end where the dock’s waste was dumped and it was possible people also ditched furniture.

As he approached, he could see wood and fabric, piled up next to the dumpsters where they wouldn’t fit. Calling it furniture was giving it more credit than it was due, but there was enough workable pieces to outfit at least his old apartment, if he threw any kind of interior decorating to the wind. All that stuff was to uphold an image and had come with the place anyways. Now he just needed functional. 

Given his recent streak of luck, Tim decided not to tempt fate on things still being here when he came back later, so he took a few minutes to play furniture jenga and stash his chosen pieces of bed frame, table, and chairs out of sight behind a warehouse door a dozen feet away. His arms burned by the time he was finished.

Running on empty, and he knew it. Tick tock. 

Still needed to find a dolly or something, because there was no way he and a kid were going to be able to get this across the city by themselves if they had to carry it. Hell, he’d take a wagon if it came down to it.

A spiral search pattern using the dumpsters as a starting point probably wasn’t the most efficient system Tim could have used, but if he had to go over every wharf in a grid he was going to scream, so spiral it was. He passed enough fallen needles to suggest one of the warehouses was not only housing drugs, but probably home to users. Something to check out later, but not helpful at the moment. Idly, as he moved farther from the water and into the semi-industrial area proper, he tried to peg which gang or mob owned which warehouse. The ratio of criminal holdings to civilian was kind of worrying.

Ah, there was his own little warehouse, door left shut. Tim wondered if it counted as a criminal holding, since he didn’t even have a deed to it or anything. He recalled a stack of pallets in one corner, maybe however they got there was still inside as well? Worth a shot. 

Tim bypassed his own traps with relative ease, and it looked like none of them had been disturbed, which was a great sign. He might need to check-in regularly to maintain it his tenuous possession of it, unless he could find a way to buy it off its actual owners, if there even were any. There was a chance he was putting too much thought into a place he had spent maybe two hours in, and had no current use for. 

If it had a pallet dolly, he’d call it fate and keep the place.

He made his way to the stack he remembered in the corner, and sure enough, they were still sitting on the beautiful wheeled contraption that had brought them in. 

Alright, warehouse, welcome to the family.

Tim really needed to get some sleep.

Pallet by pallet, he freed the dolly and took hold of its handle to stash it with the furniture. He was so close to being able to call it a day out here and head home. Maybe grab something to eat on his way back. _Nap._ And then he’d have a whole afternoon to try and convince Luke to stay somewhere safer than wherever he’d slept last night, if he had gotten any at all. 

Mind churning through arguments, Tim wouldn’t have noticed the shift behind him if it weren’t for the unholy screech of steel against asphalt. He looked back.

One of the wheels popped off. 

For fuck’s sake. Fuck things being easy, apparently. The wheel hadn’t gotten far, so he tossed it on the back of it and carefully wheeled it the rest of the way. 

He could figure out if it was fixable later.

God, another later. It felt like his entire world was made up of to-do lists and laters. There was so much he had to do, so much that _needed doing,_ if he wasn’t careful Tim was pretty sure he could spend the rest of his life squaring things away. He wasn’t sure if it would be worth it or not.

He needed to focus.

Tim left the broken dolly next to the broken furniture and closed his eyes, trying to lessen the pounding in his head. He let himself have a count of sixty.

And then he turned away and headed back into the city.

The walk was a daze. His eyes burned, his feet ached, his head pulsed. He could barely focus to retrace his steps. 

Barely was enough.

The key slid into the lock, and the breath slid from his chest. The door swung open, and he stumbled through, letting it swing shut behind him. Without any awareness on his part, he found himself on the floor and pressed against it. He could sleep like this, just for a little while.

Wait. Responsibility. Promises. 

Clumsy fingers set a timer on his belt to zap him in three hours if he didn’t deactivate it. It’d do.

Tim’s head dropped to his knees without his permission, and he was out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may be wondering, Table, why did this take longer to get out than the last part? And I would answer, because I wrote half of the last part in one sitting where this one I've been picking away at, few hundred words at a time. 
> 
> I'm not going to pretend to have schedule, chapters will come out when I finish them. I try to write at least a little everyday, but who knows man.
> 
> This part tbh got kind of out of hand? It's very stream of conscious, but I kinda dig that so it stays. As always, thanks to Replacement Robin for being generally great and thanks for all the wonderful comments. I really appreciate it ^-^


	4. Chapter 4

It was with a small amount of discomfort, Tim found himself falling face first onto the floor. A mild electric shock would do that. At least he was awake, and still had some time before he needed to go see Luke. 

He made a quick run to one of the thrift stores he had passed earlier, picking up a few pairs of jeans, t-shirts, some (packaged) socks and underwear, a pair of cracked-leather boots, and a red zip-up hoodie that caught his eye. Enough to live off of for a while, though he’d consider getting more if he was stuck here for long. There was still the vague hope someone would notice his presence soon.

A glance at the time told Tim grocery shopping would be yet another tomorrow venture, but at least he had time to change. 

Getting out of his suit after wearing it for several days straight was exactly as unpleasant as he had expected it to be. It stuck in places things really should not be sticking and it released a smell that made Tim regret having a nose. He took a quick shower with it, scrubbing the major places sweat accumulated with his bar of cheap soap and cleaning himself off. It was the best he could do, so he left the suit hanging from the showerhead on the off chance it would dry sometime this century.

Oh hell he didn’t have a towel. 

Tim darted to the clothes bag, drying off with the packaged underwear since it was about the only thing he was  _ sure _ was clean, and got dressed. Today was a hoodie day, he decided. His hair was going to dry into a nightmare, he just knew it. But at least it didn’t feel like sadness and sweat.

He still kinda smelled like the harbour.

With personal hygiene sort of checked off, Tim made his way to the convenience store. According to the plastic watches on display, at exactly four o’clock. Reliability was important when trying to establish oneself as a trustworthy adult to kids.

Luke wasn’t inside, but Tim had seen him hiding in the alley beside it. Lurking was thirsty work, so Tim bought two bottles of water before heading back out to meet him.

“Ready to go?” Tim asked, tossing a bottle to him.

Luke caught it, and gave Tim a judgy kitten look. He fell into step beside Tim anyways. “You lied about your name.”

Sharp kid, but Tim had already had this conversation once. “Yes and no. My middle name is Tim and my first name sucks. So it was a little misleading, but not technically a lie.” 

“What’s your first name?”

Tim laughed. “No way, kid. If you can figure it out yourself, you can use it. Until then, it’s just Tim.”

“Fine, Weird Guy,” Luke’s voice was mulish, but there was a light in his eyes and his steps were easy. 

They didn’t speak much on the rest of the walk, Tim only confirming their direction and making sure Luke always had a lane to run while keeping himself casually between Luke and anything that looked threatening. It was a careful balance made harder by not letting him notice it was happening.

Tim was kind of enjoying being the responsible adult one, for once. Damian didn't count, the brat would rather eat his sword than take anything resembling guidance from Tim. Or better yet, make  _ Tim _ eat it.

The dumpsters with the furniture was far enough away that calling them ‘by the docks’ was giving the wrong impression, but at least that meant the walk was shorter this time.

Luke looked at the pile of splintered wood and rotting fabric, with the critique of a construction foreman. "There's some salvageable stuff near the top I can pass down to you that won't fuck up the whole balance here."

He started climbing before Tim could even respond, calling behind him as he scrambled up like some kind of squirrel, "How willing are you to do a little construction work? Most of this is in pieces, but not all of the pieces are going to match up."

"Woah, Luke, slow down! I already pulled some pieces from in there this morning and stashed them. No need to start scaling Mount Bonfire-in-Waiting." Tim wanted to go get him down, but this thing really  _ was _ unstable and he didn't want to risk it collapsing if he didn't have to.

The boy stopped, and looked down. The look was back, with added disdain thanks to the angle from halfway up. "You could have said something earlier."

And then he twisted around, holding onto a protruding desk leg with one hand. With a lurch, Tim realized his plan was to jump, which he normally would let slide, for hypocrisy reasons, but he could see this wouldn't work. The bookcase beneath Luke's foot was an insufficient launch point, and it would ruin any chance of a clean landing.

Luke clearly hadn’t noticed.

"Wait-!"

Luke was already moving, the cheap plywood-framed cardboard giving way under the force of his push and sending him pitching face first towards a mess of sharp edges.

It was old instincts, some of the first from before he ever put on a cape, that had him darting fleet-footed up and over and past the fragments of furniture and on top of a reeking ice chest to catch the boy before he could go headfirst into the razor splinters. Tim tucked him close to his chest and nimbly hopped down, as half the pile shifted and rattled, things falling into each other with creaks and groans.

Head pressed against Tim’s shoulder, Luke was tight like he was bracing for a blow. Or a fall. He was ever so gently shaking, and barely breathing. He looked up slightly, first at the pile and then at Tim, pupils blown.

Then he took a deep breath and set his feet back down, shoving away from Tim none too gently. "Thanks."

Tim kept a hand on his shoulder, but didn't try to force eye contact. "C'mon, I"ll show you where I stashed the stuff I grabbed."

Together they made their way to the still-ajar door. Tim didn't let the silence linger. "I managed to find something with wheels, but one of them is broken. I don't suppose you know anything about cart repair? It's okay if you don't, we'll just have to take it a little slower."

That seemed to rouse Luke a little more, and he approached the dolly with purpose, taking a knee to examine the axle and then the wheel perched next to it. He hummed a little under his breath as he fitted it into place, carefully aligning the edges, before pulling back and kicking it hard.

"That should keep it there long enough for us to get back, as long as we're careful about it."

Tim nodded. "Thanks. Now do you want to give me a hand getting all of these bits on top of there?"

They loaded the dolly, Luke occasionally taking a shot at Tim's choices, which Tim thought was a little unfair. What did Luke know about interior design anyways?

“Two chairs, a table, and a bed. What are you trying the minimalist lifestyle here?”

A raised eyebrow. “You’ve got me, oh paragon of apartment planning, what else do I need?”

Luke gave him a flat look. “You need more chairs, somewhere comfy to sit, and at least one shelf to put shit on. And, y’know. A mattress. Unless you  _ like _ sleeping on slats. Then again, maybe you do.” The unspoken  _ you goddamn weirdo _ was very loud.

“The shelf and chairs we could grab, but comfy implies stuffing that has probably rotted out here, and I’m pretty sure any mattress in there would give me so many diseases,” Tim said, making eye contact to convey the depth of his concern. “So many.”

“Wimp,” Luke snorted.

“Maybe, but at least I won’t get syphilis without any of the fun parts.” He paused. “That’s a joke, but STIs are not. Seriously, no one wants to be leaking pus from their dick or... other orifices. Safe sex is worth the inconvenience.”

“You’re gross and I’m not listening to more of this. There’s a place I know where you can get a mattress, if you can get over yourself enough to ignore the weird stains. I’ll talk to some people about a chair.” Luke seemed to be half thinking aloud, staring at the dolly in contemplation.

Tim risked placing a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate it, but don’t waste any favours on me. I can figure something out eventually. I’ll take you up on the suspicious mattress, regardless.”

Luke looked back at him over his shoulder, gaze searching. After a moment he nodded and pulled away. “C’mon I already know which piece of shit shelf we can grab.”

—

With the cart loaded up, shelf included, they left the docks, this time with Luke in the lead since his response to Tim saying the mattress could wait was, in a word, vehement. In another, it was kind of mean.

The place turned out to be a stack of mattresses behind a strip mall, tucked under and awning and on a pallet so presumably they wouldn’t rot quite as fast. Each mattress was a varying level of unpleasant, so Tim just picked the one that made him the least uncomfortable to look at and promised himself he would sleep on top of his cape until he got sheets.

In the trek back, they actually attained a level of small talk, even if it was just comparing preferred places to eat and why. Tim had to watch his words to make sure he never referenced somewhere that didn’t exist yet, but he learned a thing or two about current conflicts over culinary sites. Luke also had a recommendation of where specifically they should get their pizza for the evening.

They stopped at the place in question, a little family owned pizzeria that did take-away for an extra dollar. There was a little stink-eye over Tim parking the cart out front, but after he gave the woman by the clay oven an apologetic grin and a shrug, she seemed to let it go with a huff.

As they waited for their order to finish, two men in cheap suits strode in. Noisy, big, low level enforcers that thought they were hot shit because they got to collect debts even though they were never sent after anyone who might consider fighting back. Here on their time off, or was there more to this place than Luke had mentioned?

“Knock, knock, knock, Mama Vecellio. You’re running late on this month’s payment. Without proper funding, how can we be expected to keep this fine establishment safe from miscreants and freaks of the night?” the smaller man drawled with arms crossed, loose and confident. 

At the till, a teenager’s face hardened, but she stepped back as the other woman (her grandmother?) stepped forward. “Bullshit. We paid for the next two months last Tuesday.”

The smaller man looked to his buddy, still more amused than angry. For now, at least. “Well I’m sure you understand the way this city is going, more and more desperate people. Who knows what kind of terrible things could happen to this place, if you didn’t have us looking after you?”

Luke was very carefully not looking at the men, and neither was the teenager, but both were wired tight and clearly anxious.

“We have paid. We will pay again in two months, no sooner,” snapped the eldest Vecellio. She gripped the spatula like she was ready to fight with it.

Big guy apparently he decided he was bored with negotiations, or maybe he thought he could help speed things along. Either way, he picked up one of the chairs and swung it at the nearest wall. 

For the second time that day, Tim moved without thought. He was over in a moment, grabbing the leg of the chair and twisting with it to use its momentum to spin them around and placing himself between the two men. “Hasn’t your mom ever told you it’s not nice to break other people’s stuff?”

“Didn’t your mommy ever tell you not to get involved in other people’s business?” sneered the smaller man, though still several inches taller than Tim, reaching into his coat. The big one tried to jerk the chair away, but Tim had a solid grip on it now and wasn’t letting go until things escalated further.

“What can I say, I’ve never been good at taking advice from parental figures.” Tim smiled with everything but his eyes. “You should consider it though. No need to make a mess when you’re the ones being unreasonable in the first place. They’ve paid more than enough for your poor excuse for ‘protection.’”

“Fuck off, kid. Last warning before we redecorate with your  _ face, _ ” the man Tim decided to call Chatterbox growled. As if he sounded like anything more threatening than a garburator. 

Tim glanced around, taking in the staff (another teenager had emerged from the back, along with a possible parent), the patrons (two people besides Luke; a young couple out on a date), and the breakable objects in a ten-foot radius (chairs, tables, glasses, a window). Ideally, he wouldn’t have to fight them here, but he wasn’t optimistic about their manners.

“How about this.” It wasn’t a suggestion. “We go outside and have a  _ conversation _ about the respective things our mothers did or did not teach us, and then we go from there?”

Luke was staring at Tim now, his entire expression one of  _ what the fuck are you doing _ . Tim didn’t break eye contact with the thug, but he did give a very discreet thumbs up. Hopefully the kid wouldn’t worry too much. 

He would make it quick.

Both men laughed at him. Jerks. “Okay, brat, if you’re so eager to get taught a lesson, sure. Ladies, take notes. Cooperate or you’ll end up like this moron.”

Tim tugged the chair towards the floor, and the big man resisted for a second before releasing, probably trying to throw Tim off-balance. Too bad for him, Tim’s balance was honed on giant pennies and moving trains. After gently lowering the furniture to the tile, Tim turned on his heel and made for the door, watching the mens’ reflections in the window in case they tried anything, though he doubted they would. They were so overconfident they didn’t think they needed the advantage.

For all the lies Tim was telling these days, he needed a good, honest, fight.

The door opened onto the darkening street, and Tim waited. Weight a little forward, hands loosely curled, eyes sharp. 

Yet again Chatterbox opened his mouth, doubtlessly with some cliche bullshit, but Tim had had enough. The point in these kinds of situations was pretty specifically  _ not _ to talk. Maybe it would be a teaching moment after all.

Tim whipped a heel into his open jaw, quietly missing the titanium soles of his work boots. Steel toes just didn’t have the same versatility. Ah, well. Beggars and choosing and all that.

He followed the motion of the kick across his body to drive an elbow into a conveniently lowered temple, and as his foot touched pavement, he used it as a pivot point to torque his opposite fist into Chatterbox’s chin in a neat  _ lights out _ . All that bark, and not even a flash of teeth.

Shame.

Big guy was staring wide-eyed, but he at least had his hands up so he must know  _ something _ about fighting. He tried to grab for Tim’s neck, and while Tim bit back the laugh he didn’t try to hide the grin as he weaved through the outstretched arms to drive his knuckles into his windpipe, a palm to his nose, and then hooked his arm around the side of his neck and drove the man’s head into his knee. Twice. The elbow to the base of the skull was more an afterthought than anything else; his own little way of double-tapping. 

Shaking his hands out in a quick flick (fighting without proper wraps was hell on the wrists), Tim glanced through the window to see the pizzeria’s occupants staring at him. He tried to soften the admittedly manic edge to his smile, but he wasn’t sure he was entirely successful, judging by their incredulous expressions. 

The quiet chime of the door broke the spell, and when Tim stepped inside he was greeted by a surprisingly coordinated, “What the fuck?”

“Any chance you have some rope or something so I can send a bit of a message?” Tim made sure to direct his question at the potential grandmother. “For some reason, I can’t imagine calling the cops would help anybody here.”

Flinty eyes met his for a moment, then turned to the first teenager. “Stella, go get the ties the vegetables arrive in.”

It was a very awkward silence between the girl, Stella, entering the back and returning with a few coils of a braided polyester. Tim took them with an absent thank you, already shuffling through options. Individually these weren’t much good, but he could braid them together quickly enough. At least the streetlights on this street were relatively stable. Neither of the idiots outside should be getting up soon, so it was fine.

Hands working, he asked, “What’re we looking at for time on that pizza? And Luke, would you mind eating the first few slices here if it takes me an extra couple of minutes to sort this out?”

“I don’t mind. But you’re still paying,” Luke said. His tone still contained a fair amount of bemusement, but at least it didn’t seem to be slowing him down.

Tim waved a hand, as he finished the much more load-bearing rope. “Of course I am, I promised, didn’t I? Okay. I’m gonna go hang those assholes up to dry, and if the pizza’s done before I am feel free to get started.” He slipped the money he’d brought for his out of his hoodie pocket, handed it to Stella, and made his way back outside, ideas coming together.

\--

It was only the work of about ten minutes to give the pair of them wedgies they would  _ never _ forget, counterbalanced off one another to make getting down an exercise in teamwork. Maybe they’d learn something about the value of friendship and not underestimating opponents.

Tim wouldn’t hold his breath.

When he re-entered the pizzeria, conversation came to a halt. Looked like everyone had gravitated together and were splitting both the meat lover’s Luke had ordered, and a second one with vegetables. The couple had added their half finished breadstick basket. Posture was casual all around, but had frozen in place when the bell rang. Tim got the impression his ears ought to be burning.

“With any luck they’ll think twice before coming back here to extort you again. I don’t suppose you know who they work for, do you?” Tim figured the odds were decent on them knowing, since people weren’t exactly going to give large amounts of money to a couple of random guys no matter how intimidating.

Surprisingly, the answer came from Luke, perched on a table. “The whole street pays the Ibanescus to be left alone.”

“Everyone on this entire street is paying a glorified dog-fighting ring for protection? Protection from what, rabies?”

The whole room gave him variations on the same confused look. Was this not common knowledge? One half of the couple spoke up. “What are you talking about, they do more than just dogfights.”

Tim resisted the urge to roll his eyes by focusing on how backwards this felt. “Yeah, human trafficking and prostitution. And apparently protection rackets.” He glanced from face to face, at least they were more skeptical than disbelieving. “Look, this is ridiculous. Tell your neighbours not to waste time paying those losers anymore and I’ll sort it out. They won’t be bothering anyone much longer.”

“Is that a promise?” the oldest Vecellio asked, her flinty gaze holding something like a test.

There was only one answer he could give. “Yes. I promise.” The tension was distinctly unpleasant, so it was time for a little Robin levity. “Now, did you save any of that pizza? I want both to eat tonight and get all that furniture in my place, you know, before midnight.”

Luke hopped to the floor and closed the lid on the mostly-eaten pizza. “Thanks for the food, Mrs. Vecellio. I’ll carry the pizza, and you can drag the cart, Weird Guy.”

“You just don’t want to do any hard labour,”Tim gave an over-the-top put-out sigh. “Youth these days. Where did we go wrong?”

The grin he got in response was worth having to drag the cart himself the last four blocks. Luke was magnanimous enough to help get the pieces upstairs, and then threw the pizza box at his head and told him to get some sleep. 

Rude.

But he had a point, Tim  _ was _ exhausted. Apparently his nap had done less to replenish his energy than he had hoped. Even setting up his furniture felt like too much effort at this point. He also didn’t want anyone in the adjacent apartments getting woken up my furniture construction.

  
Tim quickly scarfed down a couple pieces of pizza, and brushed his teeth for what he realized was the first time in  _ days _ . Then he shifted the mattress until it was laid flat on the floor, carefully set his cape overt op of it, and called it a night. He could chase down leads on the Ibanescus and Two Face tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things in two days? Thanks reading week, for helping me be productive in all the wrong ways!
> 
> For real though, do my endings seem rushed to you guys? I'm trying not to drag everything out unnecessarily but I'm not sure it's coming across well. Hopefully finally arriving at timeskips will make my pacing less painfully weird. We can all hope.
> 
> Thanks for the lovely comments and such, they do genuinely brighten my day. Hope you're all having a good week, regardless of the seemingly ubiquitous crap weather.


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next week, Tim laid a lot of groundwork; scouting the area and eavesdropping on conversations, showing up at a handful of other small industrial companies to offer tech support. He bought a burner phone so he had a number to give out, and scrounged up some physical documentation to match the digital copies he’d fabricated on his first night. He finally sorted out his utilities.

He also managed to find the warehouse where Two Face was storing his construction supplies for the big event in the next few days. It was all sitting there, behind lazy armed guards and cheap locks, just  _ asking  _ to be messed with. Tim had obliged.

Three times in the seven days Luke came over for dinner. The first time was actually the next day because he insisted “You won’t build anything without help,” and then demanded compensation. They argued over Chinese takeout about whether spring rolls were superior to green onion cake. They absolutely were not, no matter what Luke seemed to think.

The second time, Luke wasn’t alone. He brought with him a couple of little girls, offering no explanation, and telling them they could stay right by the door if they wanted. Which was a little presumptuous, but Tim wasn’t going to argue. The older one, who couldn’t have been older than six, introduced them as Rita and Miri when Luke passed them a couple boxes of pad thai. There was a brief attempt by the younger girl to steal one of his socks, that he averted by pinning it to the door frame with a chopstick when she turned and exposed the toe on their way out.

It was the principle of the thing.

On the third night, he had company again, this time an older-looking boy. It was hard to peg an actual age, since chronic malnutrition messed with size, but Tim would hazard he was somewhere around thirteen. The boy didn’t say a word all night, and stood in the doorway until he was finished eating. Then he left without making eye contact.

Apparently this was Tim’s life now.

He also picked out a handful of locations the Ibanescus had used for dogfights in his own time and were definitely still active today. Or was it already active? English grammar was not meant for this kind of temporal explanation. Either way, that was tonight’s project.

With all the care of an uncertified combat engineer, Tim set up explosives (obtained by visiting the cleaning supplies aisle, raiding dumpsters for scrap electronics, and getting a little creative) at each site and linked them via cannibalized radios to a detonator. The sites were empty when not in use, and Tim had personally recommended various squatters, who were just a little too close to the blast radius, spend the night in other places on account of “some cape and mask bullshit.” He’d also sealed them as best he could, just to be sure. Now he just needed to find this evening’s activities, unwire that bomb, and tip the cops off, since he wasn’t  _ actually _ trying to get anyone hurt. Much.

It was a shame about the dogs, since so rarely could fighting dogs be rehabilitated. The poor things deserved better than being put down for things they didn’t even want to do in the first place. Maybe he could-

No. Firm no. Not only was he unsure his apartment’s policy on pets, but he was in no position to care for a dog with the severity of issues inevitable from the abuse involved in a fighting ring. It wouldn’t be fair to the animal.

Thankfully, if there was one thing illegal gambling rings were not, it was difficult to track down. At first, Tim had thought they would be, but, given the whole point was to attract people to take part, there were always tells. This time, it was the rather indiscreet trail of fresh paw-print graffiti. Keeping it classy, these guys were. They had set up shop in an abandoned car manufacturers, making a maze of chainlink between the audience and the fight, with armed men on the upper walkways around the makeshift ring. 

The air was already abuzz with the manic bloodlust that came only from people who were perfectly safe and hoping for carnage. He’d call them vultures, but that would be an insult to scavengers everywhere. At least vultures ate what they found.

Much to his disgust, Tim, with work boots and both the jacket and hoodie to mask the layered belts, fit right in.

The master of ceremonies for the night was riling the crowd up even further, and the cops would be about ten minutes out from the time of his call, which gave Tim a clear, if narrow window to get far away. He didn’t want to set anything off until after the cops were already engaged at this location to slow response times to the other sites. After all, wherever Dragos Ibanescu was tonight, the destruction of all of his primary holdings would get him moving, and Tim wanted first crack at him.

Tim made his way through the crowd, picking weapons out of pockets wherever he could, hoping to minimize the violence when the police arrived. The number of knives people had managed to get inside was a little concerning, but it just cemented Tim’s opinion of the Ibanescus’ competence. This could be fun.

Getting into the health-code violation of a bathroom where he had stashed the explosives was less a matter of sneaking than waiting in line for the single bathroom. He had left it at the bottom of the trash bag in the corner, so he did his best not to touch any truly unmentionable substances as he rummaged and regretted his life choices. 

Bingo.

Careful not to slosh the liquids inside too much, Tim raised his amateur demolitions device from the bag and set it onto the floor. Since he had built these specifically as a part of this plan, it was relatively easy to dismantle, starting with the transmitter and going step by step until he had a wad of electrical tape and tinfoil, some busted electronics, and a couple bottles of cleaning supplies.

"Hurry it up in there!" someone yelled, banging on the door.

Tim responded with a string of curses that would have made Jason proud, and picked up his pace.

He left the bottles in the corner, in case someone was struck by sudden inspiration to make this bathroom a little less horrible, and shoved the rest of it back into the garbage bag. Then it was out the door, flipping off the man who had 'knocked' as he went.

All he needed now was a secluded place to call the cops from.

The first fight was underway, and Tim tried to ignore the snarling and pained whines, and sounds of tearing flesh, but he had to wrap his hands tight around the knives in his pockets to keep from lashing out. These people weren't quite monsters, but they were so desperate to get away from their own shitty lives they would not only condone, but  _ actively seek out _ this kind of pointless brutality.

There was no real thought that guided him past the fences and to the back of the factory, beyond needing to get away from the cheering, but his feet carried him through shadows and around corners until he found himself looking at the cages. Two men armed with cattle prods paced back and forth on the strip between the two walls of bloody and rusted steel. None of the dogs even snapped at them as they walked, instead watching with wary gazes that were all too aware of the pain those sparking sticks were capable of. 

Fuck it. He needed an out of the way place anyways, and it's not like the dogs would give a damn about a phone call.

Tim glanced up, to the rafters, and decided they could hold his weight as long as he thought very light thoughts and didn't strain them too hard. Which meant no grapple. He took a running start at the wall, retracted bo in hand, and made it three long strides up before putting his staff to the wall and extending it, using the shift in momentum to launch himself to the wooden struts. It was a close thing, hands closing around wood with enough splinters to make Tim wish he was wearing gloves, but then he was up and creeping towards the two men just as they crossed paths.

Perfect, if he could drop the first silently, his partner wouldn't know until nine paces later, when he turned around.

Missing the admittedly kind of dramatic flare of his cape, Tim dropped back down. Very conscious of his time frame, he darted forward to target number one. Arm around the throat, tight enough to stop any kind of shout, and the free hand to catch the cattle prod in the middle. Twist it sharply, pressing his other arm closer still, until the end of it was centimeters from the base of the man's spine. Then release one and with the other,  _ push _ .

The man went rigid, shook, and made to drop but Tim stepped into catch him. Wouldn't do to let him hit the ground loudly and-

Pain crackled across Tim's body, coming from his left side and whiting out his thoughts, and he collapsed at the feet of the other man, who had, apparently, turned around earlier than expected.

“Well lookie here, what’s a kid like you doing in a place like this?” his grin was slimy and sharp, and as soon as Tim got the twitching under control he was going to  _ demolish _ him. “Causing trouble, eh? The boss’s always happy to get new merchandise, and you’ll fetch a pretty penny with a face like that.”

He reached down, fingers just grazing Tim’s jaw, and  _ nope. That was enough. _ Tim snapped his head forward and sank his teeth into the meat of the man’s hand. The shriek was satisfying, but not as much as the  _ thunk _ he made when Tim swept his legs from under him. It was a close thing, not getting crushed by his falling weight, but Tim rolled out of the way and jabbed an elbow into his throat, once, twice, and then grabbed him by the chin to slam his head into the concrete.

A groan told Tim he wasn’t quite done yet, and man what was this guy’s skull made of? Fine, Tim threw a leg over him, and introduced him to his fist. They had a few words, until, at long last, Tim’s fist won the argument and the man agreed to pass out. Diplomacy at its finest. 

Rolling his shoulders and neck out, Tim looked up and straight into the biggest pair of golden eyes he had ever seen. 

Oh  _ no _ .

It was a tiny little pit bull, emaciated and unscarred. They hadn’t even bothered to cut its tail, which told Tim more than anything that it was here to die. Something small to die messy and whet the appetite. 

For a searing second, Tim hated these men. 

And then he breathed out, slowly stretching his fingertips to the bars of the cage, and let the pup scent him. “Hello, beautiful. I’m not here to hurt you, though I know that may be hard to believe.”

It took a moment, Tim muttering soft nonsense all the while, but eventually the dog crept forward and tried to lick at him through the bars.

Tim’s heart melted.

He pulled the picks from his belt and carefully unlocked the cage, swinging it open and then stepping out of the way. The roar of cheers reached a crescendo; he didn’t have a lot of time. 

Phone out, dialing quickly, Tim retreated back to a corner out of view of both entrances to the room. The conversation was terse, toned low and forced to phrase the ‘tip’ urgently enough they’d respond immediately, but not so specific he seemed involved. About halfway through the call, Tim felt a nudging at his legs. He looked down and was met with a tongue lolling out of a toothy grin.

So he was doing this.

Tim reached down, slowly, letting the dog see his movements coming, and when it nudged its head into his hand, he gently picked it- quick check, a her- up and held her to his chest. She licked at the underside of his chin, even as she shook slightly. Tim one-handedly wrangled the ends of his hoodie together, and zipped it up over her, tucking the hem into his pants and creating a makeshift sling to hold her in place. Her head peeked out the top for a moment, before she ducked down and gently headbutted him.

It was a little awkward, but he wouldn't pretend the warmth wasn't welcome.

Still, it was time to get out of here before the cops arrived.

\--

Sirens tore through the night, making the dog quiver, and putting an extra kick in Tim's step. He would have hit the rooftops, but he was pretty sure that would actually give his passenger a heart attack, so he was sticking to the sidewalk until the last minute.

After two blocks, Tim zipped his jacket as well, and thumbed the radio in his pocket, emitting a signal on his carefully chosen bandwidth.

The explosions weren't big, were actually carefully designed to make each site unusable with minimal collateral, but the number of them happening at the same time meant damn near every block in Lower Gotham would hear at least one.

And the timer was going.

Ducking into an alley, Tim pulled out his grapple and headed for Park Row at pace. Odds weren't high he would find Ibanescu there, but it was central enough a vehicle moving in a hurry towards the heart of the city would pass by or near it. If he had to guess, Tim would say that Dragos would most likely assume this was some kind of rival gang trying to move into his territory. That was certainly what it looked like, after all, and the best response would be to head to one of the illicit meeting sites for mid-level crime bosses to raise a little hell.

It was a shame those were rarely stable, or Tim probably could have predicted just where Dragos would be going and could head him off on the way there. Then again, the Ibanescus fancied themselves about mere street gangs, and were less likely to go to some meetup by the tracks. He just hoped it wasn't a bar, because he really didn't need his clothes smelling like booze, and he hadn't bothered to make a physical ID yet.

Knowing his luck, it was probably a bar.

As if summoned by the thought, the screech of tires that could only come from a luxury vehicle taking a corner too hard sounded a couple of streets over.

Tuning out the wriggling against him, Tim swung around the corner and over a small apartment complex in time to watch the tail of the vehicle disappear ahead of him, heading south.

South, south... there was a couple of underworld bars just before the Narrows, and an Italian restaurant owned by the Falcones that a handful of other families ate at. Tim had been there once, running an undercover op for Huntress, and even he could admit their handmade pasta was  _ phenomenal _ . Too bad their store room was full of cocaine.

Tim wouldn't pretend to know the particulars of Dragos' thought processes, but he probably wasn't dumb enough to pick a fight somewhere that was putting up the airs of legitimacy. No one liked their money laundering businesses getting shot up. Which meant Tim's early hunch that it was a bar was probably right. He didn't think The Stacked Deck opened until next year, but he was pretty sure My Alibi was operational.

He'd aim for there, and adjust if the blatantly speeding car seemed to go somewhere else.

Quiet whimpers and the scratch of little claws kept Tim company for the journey, and it was an effort not to think too hard about all the work that would need to go into finding the little darling a home, but it was really not the time.

His hunch paid off, because by the time Tim got to the basement entrance to My Alibi, he could hear yelling. It sounded on the cusp of devolving into full on violence, Dragos insisting someone in there had set him up, and a second party (male, Irish accent, smoker) telling him to shove it up his ass.

While it was very tempting to let them settle this among themselves, this whole endeavor had been to make a point, and that point required a little face-to-face clarity. At least until the trackers he left on the black Mercedes out front gave him the data he'd need to get Dragos behind bars, and away from the people Tim had promised protection.

He couldn't exactly go in there with a dog in his shirt though. Thinking quickly, Tim shed his outer jacket and unzipped the hoodie, wrapping the little pit bull up and tucked her in a side-alley.

"I'll be right back. Just need to go handle some things," he promised, running a hand over her velvety ears. Tim could almost hear the question in her whines as he walked away. The sounds spoke to that little place inside him that never really understood why his parents had to go, and why they couldn't take him with them.

He had a lot of practice ignoring that place.

There was no way Tim could go in there with his belts out of reach, so he left the sweater open, but, after a moment's thought, he flicked the hood up. He was going in there to all but pick a fight, no need to make his face easier to recognize than necessary.

"I swear to god, no one here went after your stupid fucking mutts, and if you don't shut up about it, you're not going to be complaining about anything much longer." It was the same man speaking, and he really seemed on the edge of losing his temper. A face to the name told Tim it was probably a representative of the Riley family. He was pretty sure he and Dick had dealt with him trying to muster something up during No Man's Land. He was a long way from the Cauldron.

"Well someone had to. Nine different fighting rings do not simply explode themselves. The fucking  _ cops _ did not call themselves on the remaining one. Whoever thinks they can walk in and interfere with  _ my _ business is going to  _ pay _ ," Dragos snarled. He was noticeably younger than Tim had ever seen him, and for all that he wasn't in much better shape, he could probably at least try to run. Not that he'd make it out the door at this point.

Everyone in the room was watching the drama unfold, mostly relaxed at their various tables throughout the bar, but there was enough weaponry at hand to make things ugly in a hurry if they decided they wanted their entertainment a little more  _ interactive.  _ Time to step in.

Tim let his final step inside carry through the room, and he much more openly surveyed the scene, hands tucked in his pockets. "Dragos Ibanescu. A word, if you'd be so kind."

Dragos whirled, purple in the face and teeth bared. "The fuck do you want, foolish child?"

"I was hoping you'd be open to discussing how to ensure the next thing that goes up in smoke  _ won't _ be your condo. A lovely place," Tim hadn't actually seen it in this time, but he remembered a murder investigation where B had casually remarked a Romanian wannabe mobster lived next door. He was banking on Dragos not being the type to move often. "And surely your neighbors deserve better than to be woken up in the middle of the night to an  _ unfortunate _ accident."

"Who do you think you are?" Dragos stormed over, his goons shadowing his footsteps (both over six feet, moved with confidence so some kind of training, pistols in their coats and close quarters weapons in their pockets; he could take them).

Tim let himself grin, sharp with all of the built up tension of the last week, and leaned into the edge that had worked with everyone he met so far. "I'm the guy telling you to stay the fuck out of Crime Alley. Your cheap excuse for hired muscle couldn't extort a kiddie toy from a Happy Meal, and don't think no one noticed the whores you've been selling out of the city. Gotham is not your ball pit, and it's not your fucking livestock auction."

The temperature of the room dropped. Tim took a step forward.

“I don’t give a shit what you do in the rest of the city,” Lie. “But the next time you try to strongarm locals into a bogus protection racket, it won’t be just infrastructure going up.”

Dragos laughed; cold, cruel, and just a little scared. “You think you can tell  _ me _ what to do, boy? I will take from you everyone you hold dear, and make you watch as they die one by one.”

“Been there, done that, didn’t even get a t-shirt. But please, go ahead and tell me more about how I’ll ‘rue the day,’ really. This discussion is a courtesy I won’t waste time with again.”

A small flick of Dragos’ hand had the guards advancing further, now sporting a sap to the left and a set of brass knuckles to the right. Very close quarters then. “Or I kill you now, plain and simple.”

Tim raised an eyebrow, casting a glance to the barkeep. “And here I thought this establishment frowned on bar fights.”

The woman snorted. “This won’t be a fight. Just a smartass punk being put in his place. If anything, it’s free comedy.”

“Well with that ringing endorsement…” Tim rolled his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug and closed the remaining distance. 

Ducked the swing of the sap, followed by a crotch-shot, shove the man into his friend’s way as he doubled over. Tim kicked him hard in the back of the knee, and stepped back as Mr.Knuckles pushed the falling Sap Guy out of his way. He overreached on his punch, though, so Tim grabbed his wrist and drove his other elbow into his jaw, and followed through to swing the side of that fist across his cheekbone for a rewarding  _ crack. _

“You know, I’ll admit I might have been wrong. This is pretty funny.” Sap Guy staggered to his feet, and Tim used his grip on Mr.Knuckles to twist and throw them together. They went down in a heap of limbs. “You may want to consider staying down before I break anything else.”

He looked up into the barrel of a shaking gun. 

Dragos had gone white, and his grip was unsteady, but if looks could kill he wouldn’t need the pistol.

“Now let’s not lie to ourselves, Dragos. You’re not going to shoot me here. Least of all because you’d probably have to mop up the blood yourself.” Tim shifted slowly, again missing the cape that would normally make the tiny movement invisible. “You’re not going to shoot me, because if you do, the charges I’ve  _ already set _ at your condo will go off in two hours when I don’t refresh the delay. Your wife isn’t home, right?” Bluff. Dragos was a coward, there was no way he would risk it. Show him teeth, all razor manners and dark promise. Tim lied. “I don’t make empty threats, but hey. Your call.”

The following string of curses was a fascinating mix of Romanian and English, that made Tim regret focusing on Ukrainian and Bulgarian for his Eastern European languages. He got the gist, sure, but he just knew there were nuances that were going straight over his head. It was always nice to know exactly  _ how  _ someone was threatening to kill you.

Alas, he’d gotten distracted by Arabic and Mandarin and their pretty, pretty alphabets, and never gotten around to going back. One day.

It took another moment, but as the rant died off, the gun finally went down.

“A pleasure, truly. If you’re done, I’ll be on my way. Things to do, bombs to stabilize and all that.” Another visual sweep of the room told Tim odds were low of anyone trying to stop him, so he took the risk of turning around to leave. The confidence it projected was worth the trade off.  _ You wouldn’t dare _ .

He left the hood up until he reached the alley where he had left the dog. She was still there, nestled into the jacket and whining softly. Her ears twitched when Tim stepped off the street, but she didn’t look up until he was crouched in front of her. 

Big golden eyes blinked up at him, and for a brief second, as she tilted her head and her ears flopped, Tim half-expected her to start vibrating. He shook off the impression, and reached out slowly. When she didn’t snap at him, he scooped her up and held her to his chest.

“Alright, pretty girl, time to go home.”

The walk took much longer than swinging would have, but he kind of wanted the time to think through the next few days. Tracking gang movement, foraging for parts for the computer he was building in his kitchen cupboards, computing consultant work, and scouting properties for safe houses.

By the time he was climbing the stairs to his apartment he had several working plans, and his arms were starting to ache. All he really wanted to do was put the dog down, feed her some snack sausages, and pass out on his crappy bed. 

That exhaustion was what he would blame, were anyone to ask why it took him so long to see the two boys sitting at his table. 

Tim blinked at them. 

“Luke?”

“We talked it over, and we’ve decided tonight is Chinese again. Jason is pretty sure he knows a place that can  _ finally _ shut you up about green onion cake,” Luke said nonchalantly, then cocked his head at the bundle in Tim’s arms. “Did you get a dog? What’s its name?”

Tim barely registered the questions, brain latching onto the name and skittering his gaze over to the other boy, even as he reminded himself there were lots of kids named Jason, lots who were probably in bad situations, and there was no reason to think-

Who was he kidding. Gotham didn’t know the meaning of the word  _ coincidence _ .

Jason Todd, smaller than Tim had ever seen, scowled back at him. “Are you going to pass the phone so I can call, or what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh I didn't expect to get this done this week. I have three papers in the next two weeks, and yet. Here we are. Also this got long but I was determined to get all these things done in this chapter. Success!
> 
> Tim is being productive! And building some semblance of a set-up. Hopefully it's enough prep for the things to come, but you know what they say about plans and first contact with the enemy. :3
> 
> The normal shoutout to Replacement Robin, for reminding me I can't just get excited about things down the line and need to actually write to get there, and the rest of the C&C discord for general motivation and a wonderful environment to write in.
> 
> Comments and kudos are wonderful and thrilling, but even just staring at the hit counter like a creep is great. I'd love to hear thoughts and feelings, but if that's not your thing I hope you enjoyed anyways!!


	6. Chapter 6

Oh boy. There was an itty bitty Jason in his kitchen, ordering takeout. 

Luke was still looking at him expectantly, and Tim refused to be the kind of creep who stared at young boys, so he met Luke’s gaze and let his mouth run on automatic while his brain tried to process. “I don’t know if I’m keeping her yet, not sure the pet policy here, but she couldn’t stay where she was.”

“If you’re not going to keep her, I’m stealing her,” Luke said, completely serious. His hand twitched at his side. “Can I- Can I touch her?”

Although he was avoiding eye contact to engage in the call, Jason’s head was tilted surreptitiously towards the puppy. He had already ordered several items and relayed Tim’s address, so Tim had no idea what he was pretending to listen to. Hold music, maybe?

“It should be alright, just be careful and move slowly, okay? She’s pretty nervous, and I don’t know if she’ll bite when startled.”

Luke came over and offered a hand, letting the puppy sniff him before she nuzzled under his fingers. Jason quickly abandoned his pretense and came over as well, and soon both boys were stroking the small dog, who soaked up the attention like a velveteen sponge.

Jason glanced briefly at Tim. “You should name her something cool. Like Macbeth, or Tamora.”

“I get Tamora, but Macbeth was kind of a dick.” Tim raised an eyebrow. “Either way, I’m not naming her after any of Shakespeare’s characters because I refuse to yell a single one of those names.”

“Not the guy! Lady Macbeth, she was a badass. But fine, if you want to be boring and  _ normal _ about it,” Jason scowled.

Luke looked up grinning. “She’s gonna get big, right? How about something like Fang, or Killer?”

Tim bit back a laugh and grinned back. “Nah, people are nasty enough to pit bulls without encouraging it.” He hummed, readjusting his grip and taking a seat at the table. It helped a little with the strain. “And she looks kind of like a runt, so I have no idea how big she’ll get. I’ll think about it. Luke, could you grab the package of hot dogs from the cooler?”

“You know, you should really get an actual fridge rather than just keeping this dumb cooler full of ice. You’d be able to keep multiple days of food like a real adult,” Luke snarked, fetching the plastic wrapped sausages anyways. “Have you even got any plates yet, or are we still eating off of paper?”

“Don’t diss the paper, I don’t have to do any dishes. And I’ll get a fridge when I can find someone to help me carry one up the stairs. Are you offering?” Tim raised an eyebrow, and started pulling apart the sausages to feed the dog.

It was Jason that snorted at that. “Is that what this is, trading food for free labour? Dunno why I expected anything better from a guy called  _ Alvin _ .”

There was a pause in which Luke looked rapidly from Jason to Tim and back again. He opened his mouth, but remained wordless for about fifteen seconds. “ _ Alvin? _ How do you know that?”

Jason’s eyes widened slightly. “It’s on the shitty mailbox downstairs. ‘Alvin Draper.’”

“That’s a  _ terrible _ name. No wonder you go by Tim. You look like a dork, but not enough for that,” Luke snickered.

“I dunno, I can kind of see it,” said Jason, squinting and tilting his head like a judgemental bird.

“Excuse you, if there are any chipmunks here, it’s you two. I am a perfectly respectable animal,” Tim feigned an imperious sniff. “Like a duck.”

The boys shared a look, and burst into laughter. The sudden noise startled the dog slightly, and she abandoned the hot dog she was chewing on to burrow into Tim’s stomach. Hard. Tiny claws scrabbled and she wriggled around, almost falling out of his lap. After a moment of gentle touches, she poked her head back out, and Tim glanced back up to see the boys shushing each other. 

“Who wants to take her while I answer the door?” Tim asked.

Jason blinked at him and opened his mouth, presumably to ask why, when the delivery woman knocked on the frame of the doorway and he jumped a good half-foot in the air. Luke took the opportunity to dart over and scoop up the puppy, plopping to the ground once he had a solid grip on her.

“Jason, can you take the bags and start setting out the food, I’ll grab the plates in a second.” Tim asked over his shoulder, fishing out money for the delivery person. The exchange was quick, probably thanks to how late it was, and Jason popped up quickly to take the two bags over to the table.

The door stayed open.

Chopsticks came with the food, and really they  _ could _ eat out of the boxes, but Tim wanted to try a few things, so he pulled the paper plates from their place under the sink and set three down on the table.

He cocked an eyebrow and looked down at Luke. "You know, you're probably going to have to put her down to eat."

Luke made a face, but gently set the dog on the floor, and scurried to the chair next to Jason. Coincidentally, or maybe not, leaving the chair closest to the door without its back turned, and the one furthest from the door and with its back to the wall, both empty. Thoughtful brat.

The meal progressed with little fanfare, Tim refusing to concede ground even though the spring roll  _ were  _ some of the best he'd ever had states-side. After only a few minutes, the puppy had settled into place under the table and Tim pretended not to see the boys slipping her food.

He did, however, notice Jason had a distinctly fork-shaped lump in his pocket, when he got up to get some water. How had he even found the cutlery? It was currently being kept  _ in _ the oven.

No time like the present, Tim supposed, so he also got up and loudly made his way over to the counter, trying not to spook Jason. He had no desire to get panic stabbed by this tinier version, after all.

The noise did its job, and Jason whirled around, pressing his hands to the counter and glaring at Tim, but not saying a word.

Tim carefully telegraphed his movements as he opened the cupboard next to Jason's head and pulled from it a stack of plastic cups. Wordlessly, he offered it to Jason, who snatched the top cup with a huff and turned to the sink.

Tim took the opportunity to snag back his fork, and slip it into his hoodie.

Thankfully, Luke was too busy feeding all of the food on Tim's plate to the dog to notice.

Rude.

“You could feed her food that isn’t someone else’s. But let me guess, where’s the fun in that?” Tim asked, knowing even as he said it that his dinner was finished.

Sure enough, he got a stuck-out tongue for his trouble and Luke made direct eye-contact as he scraped the last of the lo-mein onto the floor where the puppy licked it up, before showering her with kisses. Kids truly were the real menaces to society.

"Speaking of creating opportunities for kids to eat food that doesn't belong to them," both sets of eyes turned to him, and Tim knew he had to phrase this very carefully. "Winter in Gotham sucks, and the only thing worse is winter on the streets at night. I'm thinking about setting up a few hole-in-the-wall hiding spots where I can stash food and leave on the heating. How do I do that in a way that kids will know about, and will feel safe going to?"

As he spoke, Tim carefully made his way over to his chair and sat down, palms laid flat on the table. No amount of trying to appear non-threatening could really counter the weight of the trust he was asking for, but Tim  _ knew _ Jason as a much harder version of himself, and even that man had only ever wanted the best for the kids of Crime Alley. Luke was genuinely a good kid and maybe a touch too trusting. Tim could probably do this without them, but it would mean so much more, go so much faster, if it was the kids who spread the message and decided it was worth the risk.

A quiet voice added that if he got them on-board, even if he disappeared tomorrow, they might work together and make the effort anyways. Only if he could give them a good enough plan to work with.

They were silent as they stared, and while it wasn't hostile, there certainly wasn't enough friendliness to open up, so Tim spoke again. "I know approximate numbers, and I have some ideas, but I don't know how effective those would be from the kids' perspectives. Would keys hidden in marked locations be the kind of thing that's too easy for someone else to catch onto? Are apartments better than converted condemned buildings? Is ground-floor better because quick escapes, or worse because there's an increased risk of break-ins? I have every intention of re-stocking the food, but how do I keep track of consumption without excessively invading the privacy of whoever might be in there at the time?"

The silence this time was thicker, not as heavy, but filled with contemplation instead. Better than the suspicion it had been.

"You don't have to tell me anything. I have until around October and the first snowfall to figure this out, but if you ever feel like giving me your two cents, apparently you know how to pick my lock so please do come talk to me, or leave a note or something."

Luke buried his face in the dog's side, and she licked at the top of his head. Jason didn't take his eyes off of Tim.

"How do we know you're not trying to get us to help you kidnap a bunch of kids?"

Tim looked him in the eye, and kept his breathing level. It was a fair question. "There aren’t actually a lot of ways to prove that for you. I can keep you as involved as possible, show you blueprints, let you check out locations with or without me, and you can tell anyone anything you want. But that’s not worth a whole lot, I know.”

“That the best you’ve got?” Jason asked tonelessly.

“For now. Like I said, I have a few months to figure things out and set them up. I’ll be working on this whether you choose to help or not. It’s perfectly fine that you don’t trust me, and you don’t have to change your mind.” Tim didn’t try to put any kind of spin on his words. There wasn’t much he could say that would help his case, and Tim didn't want to discourage the kind of suspicion that could save their lives one day.

The air was left an uncomfortable kind of heavy, and Tim couldn't let it fester, not with Luke refusing to look up and Jason's hollow gaze. "In the meantime, what do you think about Gertrude, as a name? Lots of nickname potential, and pretty."

Twin denials chorused through the air, and discussion of the weaknesses and merits of grandma names took over until the boys finished their dinner and wandered off for the evening. They put up almost no fight when Tim insisted they each take a box of leftovers, and they closed the door on the way out.

Tim made cursory attempts to clean up, putting the remaining boxes in his ice chest, and tossing the used plates in the garbage. He'd wash the cups later, since none of them had picked up any cracks over dinner. One was left on the floor for the puppy to drink from, and he piled his clothes into a nest for her. He'd find a better dog bed for her tomorrow.

By the time he finally got himself settled for the night, Tim was all but asleep on his feet, and the sirens that had been near constant since the explosions were mercifully silent.

…

What wasn’t silent was the scritch of tiny claws scrabbling across the floor. Nor was the  _ whumph _ of his cheap mattress compressing under the sudden weight of a wriggly body that quickly wormed its way up against Tim’s chest.

The pup squirmed and licked his nose, eyes flashing in the dim light that slipped through the blinds. She let out a little chirping yip and tried to burrow in closer.   
  
Tim laughed quietly. “Alright, chatty bird, calm down.” 

Her tail thumped against his lap, twice, and she made a valiant attempt to coat his entire face in saliva.

“Like that nickname? I don’t think I can yell that any more than one of Jason’s Shakespearean names, but we could do something close. Maybe something a little nostalgic, hm?” Tim smoothed a hand over her ears. “How does Redbird sound to you?”

The little dog tucker her head under Tim’s chin and her tail beat a rhythm against the covers for a moment, before slowing as her breathing relaxed.

“I guess that settles it. Goodnight, Redbird.”

\--

Today was the day.

Time for Tim's first major impact on the timeline, and, hopefully, his first chance to get picked up. He was pretty sure he had found the right balance between  _ different _ and  _ reality-breaking _ that ought to put him on people's radar.

No pressure.

Tim had decided the best thing to do was to allow events to play out mostly as they had, with enough alterations to mitigate the worst of the trauma for everyone involved.  _ That _ had been a sleepless night of cause-and-effect charts to decide just what he could afford to get away with, without ruining everything and preventing Dick from learning what he needed to.

He wasn't even going to touch all that nonsense with the League of Assassins guy, if he could help it. It had seemed to work out fine last time around, and in the wise words of some loser on the internet; if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And anyways, everyone deserved their own chance to run with and reject the League. It was like a Bat rite of passage or something.

Dick never really talked about the specifics of that anyways, so it’s not like Tim had a lot to work with on that front, though he was thinking of ways to prevent the hit on Dent from being called out in the first place. How often did Ra’s change his passwords?

None of that meant Tim wasn’t going to sneak into Harvey’s weird mock execution. Just in case.

Tim wasn’t dumb enough to leave things to a couple of coin flips going the way he wanted, after all.

Which was why he was currently floating inside the trick platform, rebreather in place, and waiting for the judge to drop. The bug he had set in the room was linked to his comm, so he would hear the conversation, as a precautionary measure, but one way or another at least one man was going to be coming for a swim with him because Two Face was an asshole.

"What  _ possessed _ him?" and speak of the fashion-blind devil himself. Harvey was gearing up for a full rant, it sounded like, and all Tim could do was wait, suspended in the darkness.

Outside the tank, there were two henchman, one double-sided full-scale Arkhamite, a vic-in-waiting, and two restrained vigilantes.

No wonder the judge died first last time; Two Face must have had an aneurysm over the odd man out.

"The odds are fifty-fifty, what are the stakes, kid?" which meant the game was afoot. According to the case files Tim had read, Dick had won both coin tosses, and if it wasn't for Harvey having a back-up plan, pure luck would have saved the day.

Dick gave his terms, and there was a beat of quiet from the comm. The only thing Tim could hear was the hiss of his rebreather and the weighty swell of the water, like a dull, unending groan.

"So the judge is the first. How about best two out of three?" Dick's voice was higher than Tim had heard in a long time, stirring memories of bright lights and fleshy crunches. Appealing to Two Face's love of duality was the right play here, but relying on luck was a sure way to get burned, in the long run.

But the first coin toss had gone off well. And this younger Dick really did have a different kind of confidence than he wore as he grew. Maybe Dick liked his odds. Or maybe he still didn’t quite understand just how wrong these things could go,  _ would _ go, if the power was left in the hands of criminals. Playing by other people’s rules was a fast and easy way to get innocents killed.

Second set of terms, trying to double it up, and the silence swallowed Tim again.

Tim hoped Dick's good luck held out.

Two Face's laugh shattered that hope. 

"No dice, kid! Shame, I could've respected a two'fer." Liar. Harvey’s steps were heavy on the platform, reverberating through the water, as he walked to the lever that would drop the floor from beneath the judge’s feet.

Tim knew exactly where it was; he’d had to for this plan, after all. 

The quiet lurched over Tim again, and it was all the warning he got before the darkness split, and it was the bug, not his ears, that caught the  _ snap _ of the rope giving way. Lawrence Watkins splashed in the water, squirming even as his hood soaked through. Normally, that, and the ropes knotted at his hands and feet, would be enough to damn him.

Good thing Tim wasn’t one for ‘normal’ circumstances when he could help it. 

Careful to stay out of the shaft of light cutting into the water, Tim yanked the judge out of sight and worked off his hood with one hand, pressing his spare rebreather into Watkins’ mouth with the other. Once he was fairly confident the man wasn’t going to drown, Tim held him steady, not yet making an attempt at the ropes. It wasn’t vital that the judge didn’t see him, but it  _ was _ important he stay down until the confrontation above was finished.

There was still a chance Tim might not need to intervene. 

“What kind of good for nothing rope did you boys pick up?” Harvey snarled, his shadow still looming over the pool. 

“We’re still one bet short. Best two out of three, right? We’re at one each,” Dick called out, before Two Face could really get going, and cutting off any protest from the two goons.

The shadow withdrew, as Two Face fixated back on the boy and moved towards him. “Very true. So what’ll it be?”

Tim’s mic wasn't good enough to pick up much more than rustling, and some sort of muffled yell in Batman's timber, but eventually Dick did answer. "Clean side up, and you untie me."

Two Face laughed again, not quite Joker-crazy, but hearing it both crackling through the comm and warped through the walls of the tank did a good job of making up the difference.

“Bold little shit. No, this time, I'm setting the stakes. Who dies first, you or the Bat?"

Another unintelligible cry from Batman, and the sound of impact. Tim's heart was jammed up against his rebreather, and pounding.

"C'mon, brat. Call it."

Whatever it was Dick said, it was too quiet for his equipment to pick up. He wished he knew what to hope for.

The flip could have taken a second or an hour, and all Tim could do was watch the fluorescent light roll and spin through as much of the water as it could reach. The judge was worryingly limp in his grip, but Tim could feel him breathing, and he didn't have the capacity to worry about him when his tiny older brother was twenty feet away and at Two Face's non-existent mercy. 

“Well look at that. She’s clean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! This took a while for a number of reasons, including family coming into town and having to be a Good Cousin and trying to sort out my life post-exams. Funnily enough, really wanting to post Christmas chapter before February was actually a big motivator here. Hopefully I can manage that sooner rather than later, but I make no promises.
> 
> And so things progress! Tim is the best Weird Guy and he is trying so hard here. So hard. Also, I have no idea why I thought it was the DA that got killed, because it was definitely a judge. I went back to previous chapters and fixed that. A couple pieces of dialogue are ripped from issue 2 of Robin: Year One; Two Face's first two lines, and Dick's first line. The rest is mine.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for their patience on this, and as usual thank you so much to ReplacementRobin and the CaC server because otherwise I would definitely have lost focus by now. Kudos and comments are very much appreciated, but not required, and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!


	7. Chapter 7

Even with an answer, Tim still held his breath, though distantly he knew he should be getting oxygen while he could in case he needed to give Bruce his rebreather.

This time Batman’s cry was clear. “Robin!”

Which was Tim’s cue that events were intact. Now he could only hope the sabotaged bat and ropes did their jobs and minimized the beating he knew was about to take place. He’d wait for five hits, and if Batman was still tied up, Tim would step in.

The meaty sound of a fist impacting flesh and the quieter crunch of a broken nose, followed by a small body hitting the floor.

_ One. _

Two Face mocked the fallen boy, mocked an injured  _ twelve year-old _ , and gave some inane quip about durability, cut in half by a  _ thunk _ and slight whine, a blow to the stomach with something heavy. That would be the bat. Tim had kind of assumed there would be a bigger lead up to pulling that out, but then again Two Face wasn’t known for fucking around.

_ Two _ .

A crunch crackled through Tim’s earpiece. He could almost imagine the whimper that  _ had _ to accompany what he was fairly certain was at least three ribs being broken, and his eyes clenched shut.

What was taking Batman so long?

_ Three _ .

Had his sabotage of the ropes not been good enough? He thought that by fraying the various strands over the length of it that Batman would be able to brute-force snap them, but maybe not.

Or maybe someone had noticed and they used different ropes.

Dick cried out again, drowning out the sound of the blow itself, but not the following crack that Tim could only hope was the bat splintering.

Two Face wasn’t likely to keep going with a broken weapon, so it ought to be back to his fists. Probably.

_ Four. _

The judge twitched under his hands, and Tim realized at some point he had tightened his grip enough to bruise. He tried to loosen his grasp, but his fingers weren’t responding.

The mic caught the barest edge of a whine, cut off before it could rise in volume, and it set Tim’s teeth on edge. Dick must’ve been trying so hard to suppress the sounds of his pain, but he was just a  _ kid _ . An image of a crumpled boy, all bright colours and blood, clung to the back of Tim’s eyelids. His imagination had more than enough experience with fallen Robins and injured brothers to make it painfully vivid.

Four was practically five, right?

Tim blinked as rapidly as the water would allow and tugged the judge behind him. He refused to listen to any more of this.

“ _ Robin! _ ”

Finally. The sounds of a fight were brief, and not clear enough to really follow the action, but the ensuing silence was enough to suggest Batman had taken Robin to get medical attention. 

Thank god.

Tim gave it another forty-five count before dragging the judge with him into the shaft of light and swimming to the top of the tank. Peering up over the lip, Tim confirmed Two Face and his idiots were out for the count but the GCPD had yet to arrive, giving him a narrow window get the judge back on the platform and unconscious, leaving none the wiser.

Hauling a fully grown man out of the water was definitely a work out, reminding Tim in some distant corner of his brain that he really needed to find a discreet way to upkeep his strength. Maybe he could set up a gym in the warehouse he was still sort of keeping custody of?

The rest of him was twitching with pent-up energy. Everything had gone close enough to the plan, but that meant Tim had done next to nothing while his family was at risk, and now with nothing to do Tim  _ burned _ . The first time back in his suit since he ended up here, and he hadn’t even hit anyone. 

He gave the judge a second to blink at the dusty warehouse lights, and, before he could roll over to get a look at his unexpected saviour, dosed him with a fast-acting sedative. Hopefully that would keep him under until the police arrived, and would be enough to make his statement disoriented and unclear.

Sanitizing his rebreather was going to be a pain without the proper equipment.

Tim swung up to the rafters and watched from the shadows as the police ran in, cuffing the unconscious criminals and calling EMTs to the unmoving judge’s side. Gordon was onsite and coordinating, and Tim had to stomp down the reflex to give him a breakdown of the situation. That would probably only confuse everyone involved.

Now was as good a time as any to go for a patrol. No risk of being caught, after all, not with Batman busy tending to his injured bird.

Sneaking out through a skylight, Tim left the scene and went to work.

\--

Patrol was good. Cathartic. And there was something centering about the extra challenge of not being seen in the take-downs or travel. It reminded him what he was hoping to accomplish, making things better without adding an extra player. Not letting himself get tied up in local affairs.

Though he hadn’t done a very good job of that, he could admit to himself. The people here were just so easy to care about, and Tim had never been one to turn his back on a bad situation he could change.

Tim could also admit to himself that he wasn’t being particularly generous with the criminals tonight. Looking back most of his training had been about keeping alive against people he had no business fighting, a style built around avoiding hits and capitalizing on openings. Even as Robin Tim had been meant for shadows and choke-holds, not open brawls and firefights. The same four, admittedly sort of brutal strikes could get him through most fights if he caught his opponents off-guard.

He was thankful Young Justice had kept him on his toes for just about anything, and his arsenal creative. If Batman had gotten his way, Tim would probably be mostly armed with various tasers and gas bombs with all of his more diverse compounds left in the lab. As it was, Red Robin still carried everything from an explosive foam that was essentially a stabilized cousin of napalm, to industrial lubricant.

The attempted muggings were easy enough to deal with, just keeping himself out of the victim’s line of sight for the most part by using throwing discs, his bo, or, in one memorable instance, a live cat. They’d likely have some weird stories for the police, but given the rest of the night’s events it was unlikely Batman would notice anything odd.

In other words, so long as no one got any pictures of Red Robin, he was in the clear for the night.

Victims were trickier without being able to reassure them himself. Tim didn’t like leaving them to recover alone, but they were safe and that was what mattered.

Smoke bombs were excellent for making up the difference for larger groups, letting him work without being identifiable. There was a part of him calculating the cost of replacing each pellet and how he could go about that himself without ending up on any watch-lists. Pfft. As if he had a traceable IP address or even a legal identity.

Tim made sure to keep track of the street corners with working girls, and the dilapidated alleys addicts trekked in and out of. He watched the kids darting behind dumpsters and the late night traffic that stuck to the streetlights. A surprising number of the faces he saw were familiar, but he couldn’t place many names.

He could work on that, when he was out of the suit.

Embarrassingly, the only injury he took over the course of the night was from a protruding broken drainpipe he had backed into while trying to avoid tripping over a rat’s nest. It wasn’t serious, but it had managed to pierce his suit and his skin at the elbow joint. He was going to have to be more careful with this armour considering he had no way to replace or even effectively repair any of its parts without leaving a potential vulnerability.

It was nice to be back on the metaphorical horse, but there was something that felt wrong about wearing a mask like this in a city still so full of life. Red Robin was meant for clawing back the dark before it could swallow them all whole, for a hope bordering on dogma, not protecting a people who were already trying to do that themselves.

Crime Alley needed something else. Maybe Tim would stick around to figure out what that was. 

\--

Tim regretted every nice thing he had said about anything ever. Especially Gotham.

Was it too much to ask to not get an infection from what was, quite literally, a flesh wound?

Apparently.

It wasn’t bad, yet. The edges were red, angry, and hot, and Tim could feel his pulse in its throbbing, but he wasn’t overly feverish and he wasn’t disoriented. Yet. He had time to find antibiotics and then everything would be fine.

Redbird kept trying to lick it, and after being rebuffed over and over she was settled onto his feet, softly whining. It wasn’t fair that she sounded so miserable when it was Tim who’s immune system decided to act like a trash fire.

Fuck, was Leslie’s clinic up and running yet? 

Tim was pretty sure it was, was pretty sure Leslie had been running it since Bruce was a kid, but he couldn’t bring a date to mind.

It was worth a shot.

As if triggered by his resolution to get out of bed, Tim’s front door swung open.

“This is your regularly scheduled check in to make sure you haven’t died in a gutter.” Luke’s voice was just loud enough to drive a spike of pain into the back of Tim’s head. He tried to tell himself that was enough to make him want Luke to leave.

“Not dead, just sick,” Tim croaked, burrowing back under his blanket, all resolve to get up gone.

The weight on his feet scrambled away and the air was filled with quiet yipping. 

A second, more obnoxious, creak of hinges signaled his bedroom door being opened and Tim valiantly resisted the urge to hiss. It would do nothing but demean them all.

“Vomiting sick or just shaky-can’t-walk sick?”

On the one hand, Tim knew that was in no way a challenge, on the other if he let an infection keep him down when he had patrolled with the  _ Clench _ his ego may never recover. With a groan he rolled off his bed, taking a minute face-down on the floor to reevaluate the importance he gave to presenting a respectable face to the neighbourhood. At this moment, he found he really couldn’t care less. 

“Neither. I have an infection because my immune system is secretly an analogy for Gotham’s legal system.”

“So you’re not contagious?” Luke apparently didn’t wait for an answer, because a shoe poked him in the back of the head, forcing him to roll-over.

Tim glared with no actual heat. “No that’s not how that works. I just need to get some antibiotics and then a nap, and everything will be fine.”

Luke looked a little alarmed, though he absently ran a hand across Redbird’s ears. “Where’re you gonna get  _ those _ ? I don’t think I know anyone who does legal drugs. There’s gotta be someone, but there’s no way it’ll be clean.”

“I’m hoping the Thompkins clinic will give me a prescription. Not like people are going around getting high off penicillin.” Tim stood carefully, compensating for the slight shake of his knees by locking them. One glance at the clothes piled on his closet floor and he wrote that off as a waste of time. Everything that stood between him and getting back to bed needed to be avoided if at all possible.

Next concern was whether the clinic was where Tim remembered it being. It hadn’t moved since he hit the streets, but that wasn’t a guarantee. 

He should have checked on it weeks ago.

Should haves weren’t going to help him now, so Tim stiffly made his way into his kitchen and stuck his head into the sink to drink from the tap. Hydration was important. And so were socks, though he wasn’t actually sure where his were.

Luke and Redbird trailed after him, neither making any effort to make his life even a little bit easier.   
  
“You’re gonna buy meds from a pharmacy? You have some kind of insurance for that?” Luke asked, swaying in and out of Tim’s field of vision, both trying to make eye contact and avoiding it.

No sign of socks under the table or any of the rest of his scant furniture, and now Tim’s head was swimming from bending down to check. Had he hidden them somewhere weird to stop sticky fingers last time Luke had brought kids around?

“I’m self-employed, the only benefits I have are that I get to sleep in and I can tell clients to go fuck themselves if I want,” Tim said, rifling through cabinets. “But I do need them, so I’ll figure something out. How expensive can antibiotics be?”

A tugging at his pant leg pulled his head and attention out of the cupboard, full of wiring that would probably constitute a fire hazard if it were actually attached to any kind of power source, just in time for something soft to collide with his face instead of the back of his head.

It was reflex more than thought that caught the little bundle before it could hit the floor, and Tim looked down to look at what he’d just been assaulted with.

Ah, socks.

He unfolded them quickly and tugged them on, balancing against the counter and shooting a smile over at Luke. “Thanks. Do you want to come with me to waiting room hell, or would you mind taking Redbird out with you for a couple of hours? She needs the air and I don’t want to leave her here alone. She’ll get anxious and might try to eat my bed again.”

Luke snorted. “She’s probably just trying to get at the mice I bet are living in it. But yeah we can escort you to the clinic and go find a park or something.”

“Don’t even joke about that, I have every intention of spending at least twelve hours in that bed later.” Tim pointed a warning finger at him. God, that was one way to motivate him to stay awake. “And I’m pretty sure there aren’t any parks nearby, and I’d prefer if you don’t go far so I can find you easily when I’m done.”

“Not a  _ real _ park, like Robinson,” Luke rolled his eyes. “We both know there ain’t any green spaces this side of town. But there’s an old swing-set and teeter-totter a couple of blocks from the clinic and I can take her there.”

Tim thought about it, for a moment. While he wouldn’t want Luke going to a sketchy playground at night, it was still early and he  _ would _ have Redbird with him. She was a sweetheart and pretty small, but a dog ought to be enough to dissuade at least casual criminals. And it would only be for as long as it took to get a prescription.

“Sounds like a plan, but if anything weird happens you come get me, okay? Even if it’s just someone making you uncomfortable,” he cocked a grin. “Redbird might try for you, but her teeth aren’t big enough to do much damage yet.”

Luke huffed at him, puffing up his cheeks like an offended squirrel. “Alright, you giant worrywart. But just so we’re clear; it’s a park, at like. Noon. I’m not gonna get jumped by a preschooler.”

Well he certainly hoped not, but Tim’s paranoia hadn’t been unreasonable for years.

He wouldn’t hold his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This certainly took me much longer than I would have liked. I blame a combination of exams, hockey, and getting dragged into a Star Wars period of three and a half weeks that resulted in almost 2000 words of fic I'm not sold on posting. 
> 
> But hey! This is here and I am still motivated to continue! Just slower now? I actually now have some stuff written for a while down the line, as well, which is kind of neat. We'll keep trucking along and hopefully one day those'll be relevant.
> 
> Tim is having a bit of a time, but at least things are leveling out for him. And he's gotten through the first encounter with canon events with things staying mostly intact. With any luck he'll be able to keep that up, but then again, when has Tim ever been known for being lucky?
> 
> See y'all again soon (I hope), and have a wonderful day!! <3


	8. Chapter 8

The walk was largely uneventful. Redbird was thrilled to be out and about, and Luke was enamored with her curiosity. Together they ducked in and out of alleys, damn near giving Tim a heart attack every time they left his field of vision, and more than once Redbird tried to climb into a trashcan only to be stopped by a laughing Luke.

It wasn't quite enough to put Tim into a good mood, too busy cursing the sun that nipped at his headache, but it certainly made the trip less of a chore than it would have been.

They parted ways at the door to the clinic, Tim extracting a promise to come back in a couple of hours if he hadn't come to find them yet. Luke rolled his eyes, but agreed before bounding off, Redbird following after Tim gently shooed her away.

Inside the clinic was like entering another dimension. It was both exactly like the clinic he remembered, and completely different and it made his skin crawl. The walls were a different shade of off-white and while the chairs were the same their covers were relatively clean and unbroken. Tim swore some of the magazines on the shin-buster table were the same ones he had thumbed through more than once.

Similarly, the occupants were both completely new and exactly the same as he was used to. Overworked parents with cranky kids, exhausted labourers with plastered limbs, and the occasional person who seemed mostly fine. And, of course, Bruce lurking in the corner like the creep he was.

Wait.

Bruce was what? What the hell was he doing here? Tim bit back the urge to do a double-take, instead making his way carefully to the admissions desk and trying to ignore the phantom of an assessing gaze scorching the back of his neck.

The nurse at the desk gave him a wan smile, and handed him a clipboard heavy with paperwork, sending him back to fill it out. Tim took the opportunity looking for a pen gave him to confirm that yes, that was definitely Bruce and yes, any more than a passing glance would put him right on the man's post-injured child hypervigilant radar.

He took a deep breath, and immediately regretted it as his lungs rebelled and he ended up hacking into his elbow until his vision blurred and his chest ached. Sitting down sounded like a wonderful idea.

Unfortunately the only socially acceptable seat (at least two chairs from anyone else given the room's occupants and the glances they were giving him for his outburst) put him just at the edge of Bruce's brooding shadow. Of course it did.

Between the tears Tim had to blink back and the effort he had to put into walking carefully, Tim berated himself for not realizing that  _ of course _ Bruce would take an injured Dick to Leslie, and  _ of course _ they would be there for multiple days. God only knew what the on-the-record excuse for the injuries were, but it was completely predictable and there was no reason Tim hadn't realized that beyond his own selfish focus on his own problems.

He should have gone to a different clinic, or at least waited a week before getting help. Caving after only a few days of feeling sick? Could he  _ get _ more pathetic?

So wrapped up in his own head, Tim didn't notice the hand entering his field of vision until it tapped a pen on the clipboard he had spaced-out in front of. The tap threw the loop of his thoughts completely, and it was only luck and an iron grip on his upper arm that kept him from hitting the floor.

"You've been staring at the admission forms for almost three minutes. It looked like you forgot a pen?" Bruce's baritone was a little flat, a little mechanical, like this tiny compassion was both forced and automatic. Someone needed a pen, he had one, so of course he would offer it, even if his heart wasn't in it.

Tim wanted to hurl, but he took the pen with a hand he willed not to shake. He couldn't quite manage to look up past Bruce's chin. "Thanks. I uh. I forgot to grab one before I sat down and wasn't sure if I could stand up safely."

Lips at the edge of his vision tugged into a frown. "You don't look well, do you need help filling those out?"

"No!" Tim jerked back and the hand holding him released instantly. "I. No thank you. I just have an infection, I don't need any help. Just needed a second to clear my head, you know?"

This was the part where he ought to redirect, ask what Bruce was doing here and keep the conversation as far from himself as possible, except he already  _ knew _ why Bruce was here, and the idea of feigning ignorance when it was  _ his _ fault Dick was injured at all was. Repulsive. Vile. Made him want to beg for forgiveness or cry. Maybe both.

So he kept his mouth shut and ducked his head low again, waiting for the forms to come into focus.

His white-knuckle grip on the pen made his hands ache, but it was high enough quality to hold up under the pressure and he was sure it would write like a dream anyways. Tim hadn't even had a pen this nice when he was working for WE, and signing his name on more documents than any sane man would contemplate.

Bruce was still staring at him, Tim was certain. Of course he was, he wanted his pen back and Tim was being inconvenient by wasting ti- No. That was absurd. As far as Tim knew, Bruce had never once cared significantly about a material object that hadn't belonged to someone he loved, and there was no way he would loan out something like that.

He was probably staring because Tim still hadn't started on the forms and it was going on seven minutes since he sat down. He willed himself to take a deep breath, only to remember at the last second just how that had turned out before as his chest burned sharply and he doubled over.

This coughing fit lasted longer, long enough that when it finally stopped and Tim pressed his forehead against the cool, spittle-covered paper, he could feel a warm hand rubbing the space between his shoulders in soothing circles.

Tim squeezed his eyes shut tight against the heat building behind them and asked what he had done to deserve this.

But he couldn't stay in this fragile darkness forever, or even much longer, so with a carefully shallow inhale, Tim sat back up and rubbed his eyes clear. If he could just get these forms filled out he could stand up and get away from all the gentle things he wasn't allowed to have here.

Actually doing that was easier said than done, since Tim had to decide whether or not to lie for every question. His medical history was fraught with incidents, after all, and it left a bad taste in his mouth to lie in what was once (would one day be?) a safe place for honesty, but there were things he couldn't explain. Not in full, at least.

There was also the fact Bruce was blatantly reading over his shoulder. Anything too dramatic and he risked attracting even more attention than he already had, but it was hard to downplay things like  _ emergency splenectomy _ and  _ multiple incidents of septic shock _ that really did need to be included. At least it didn't ask for anything more incriminating like all major past injuries, and his current problem was actually not a big concern in the grand scheme of things.

Something niggled at Tim, suggesting he had forgotten something important about his medical situation, but the form was complete and he hadn't needed to lie about anything too serious, so he brushed it off and shakily got to his feet.

The hand from his back, the one that hadn't left the entire time he was writing, steadied him and it was with more effort than Tim would like to admit that he shrugged it off and none-too-gently shoved the pen into it instead.

"Thanks. Sorry to bother you," he mumbled, staring at his own mismatched socks before shuffling carefully back to the admissions desk.

He didn't hear a response, but that might have been the white noise buzzing in his head.

\--

By the time he sat down in the exam room, Tim really just wanted to collect his hooligans and go back to bed. 

Thankfully, it was only a brief wait before the door swung open and Leslie walked in. Tim had really hoped he’d get some resident or something, but at this point his mother could storm in and call him a disappointment and he would only be a little surprised. 

Weirdly, Leslie’s attention wasn’t on what he assumed were his admissions form, as they so often were when she had to go quickly from patient to patient, but instead her gaze zeroed in on his own before searching across his face. He had no idea what she was looking for, but whatever she found made her lips thin.

“So Mr. Draper, you’re here about an infection?” her tone carried a professionally edged displeasure, though Tim couldn’t imagine why. It’s not like she was familiar with his reckless exploits. Not yet, anyways.

He tried a winning smile, even as it tugged at his chapped lips awkwardly. “Yes ma’am. I had a run in with a broken pipe and I guess I didn’t do a good enough job of cleaning it out afterwards.”

“I’d like to take a look at it, if that’s alright.” Her words were a courtesy and they both knew it, Leslie already pulling on disposable gloves from the box on the wall and taking a step towards him.

Tim shrugged out of his hoodie, the chill of the room biting through his cheap sleep shirt immediately. He offered his arm out, palm up, and ignored the slight shake in his fingertips. Leslie took hold of his wrist, slight heat seeping through the rubber as she probed the edges of the wound.

It was an ugly thing, for all that it was so small. Leslie’s already tense shoulders tightened further as she swept away a drop of milky yellow pus that welled in the wake of her touch. 

“Well it certainly is infected, so I’ll get you a prescription for some antibiotics.” She stripped her gloves and tossed them in a corner, but made no move to leave the exam room. Instead she fixed Tim with a steely look like she was waiting for something.

He hesitated, running through his haphazard list of things she could possibly be upset about. Was there an issue with getting supplies to the clinic? Did she somehow know he was responsible for a not-insignificant number of the injuries she had to deal with the night he went on patrol? Maybe she just thought he was an idiot?

After a long moment Leslie spoke again. “Are you going to tell me how you really got that injury, or should I just expect you to be turning up here and lying to me semi-regularly from now on?”

Tim blinked. “Excuse me?”

“That’s a yes, then.”

“Doctor Thompkins, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tim tried.

“If someone is hurting you, you don’t need to protect them. They’re clearly more than capable of doing that themselves.” Leslie’s tone didn’t exactly soften, but the edge was no longer directed at him. A spike of nostalgia drove into Tim’s chest and he fought to keep it off his face.

This was fine. Weird, but fine. “Ma’am I promise no one’s hurting me. I have a tendency to get into trouble, but this was just an accident and my own stupidity.”

Leslie hummed her displeasure. “You’re too young to be getting involved with that kind of violence.”

Oh god this  _ was  _ about the guys he beat up on patrol. How did she know it had been him?

“There’s plenty of things you can do without joining a gang. You’re young. Learn a trade. You don’t have to consider yourself a write-off just because everyone else does.” This time there was an unabashedly gentle curl to her words and the whole situation gave Tim vertigo. Or maybe that was the headache reaching new heights.   
  
Tim didn’t give enough of a damn to stop the laugh that bubbled out. “Doctor Thompkins, I’m not in a gang. Nor am I trying to join one.”

He got a disbelieving eyebrow for his efforts. “Normal young men with no association with violence don’t have scars across their throats.”

Unbidden Tim’s hand went to his neck, fingertips tracing the faded silvery line he hadn’t thought about in a while. Okay, yeah. That probably looked pretty bad in terms of undeclared injuries. But given there was literally no record of any of his injuries anywhere, this was still fine. Tim tilted his mouth sardonically, playing the trouble-maker youth. “Oh come on, Doc. No one around here has  _ no _ association with violence. But I can handle myself when trouble comes knocking.”

"The evidence of life threatening injuries says otherwise," Leslie scoffed. "But I know your type. There's nothing I can actually say to change your mind about this, is there?"

Tim's smile faded to something more honest, just an apologetic curl. "No, not really. I am being careful, if it helps."

Leslie just shook her head and turned away. "You can pick up your prescription from the front desk. I had better not see you in here any time soon."

"Ma'am yes, ma'am," Tim tried a sloppy salute, and though it made his head spin it was worth it.

He carefully picked his way back down to the waiting room, trying to gauge how long he'd been here. A couple of hours, at least, but he wouldn't be sure of much more until he got outside.

The nurse at the front desk was efficient, if somewhat lacking in anything resembling bedside manner, and it was only a couple of minutes until he was heading for the door, carefully avoiding eye contact with the broody man in the corner who was tracking his progress.

If he didn't look, it wasn't real.

Outside was less a breath of fresh air and more a hammer to the head with the sudden sharp lighting change and midday noises. Based on the sun and traffic it was about three in the afternoon, which meant it was well past time to go find Luke. Where had he said the playground was, again?

Tim set off in what he hoped was the right direction, hands buried in his pockets. He had his prescription, all he needed was to go pick up the meds and then sleep off the worst of it while his body remembered how to function. It would be unpleasant, but should only put him down for another day or two and then he'd be good to go. Which was a relief, since he had some IT responsibilities to check on at the docks and a couple of the industrial plants he had managed to talk his way into. And of course he needed to be up and about to keep an eye on the League of Assassin's fellow that was coming into town soon.

It's not that he  _ wanted _ to get involved with that in any way (it was important Dick got his assassin internship, after all), but his skin would be crawling the entire time to know this guy was here and not where he was. It would be monitoring only.

Speaking of monitoring, his safe-house project needed him to actually take legal custody of a couple of the places he was hoping to use and Tim hadn't decided how he was going to do that just yet. He couldn't exactly afford multiple properties on his current wage, and while he  _ could _ steal some from somewhere, he was pretty sure Luthor would notice funds going missing and investigate. Eventually.

Maybe he could steal money from some other ne'er-do-well closer to home? Gotham was full of assholes with more money than they deserved.

Tim wondered how the Iceberg Lounge was doing financially these days.

His musings were broken by the sound of a gunshot only a street away. The playground.

Tim took off, sprinting around the corner in time to see some asshole in a leather jacket pointing a gun at Luke, who was shielding a smaller kid behind him.

There was no thought beyond getting attention and the  _ gun _ away from the kids, and while Tim started cataloguing observations, his mouth was moving before he had anything even resembling a plan.

"Hey!"

Six of them, all wearing the same weird skull t-shirts surrounding a couple of kids. Bullet hole in the teeter totter looked fresh, a warning shot? Redbird was nowhere to be seen, and the kid behind Luke had a bruised cheek, at least a few hours old.

Every head turned towards him.

"There are so many stupid jokes about a bunch of morons bullying a couple of kids I'm not even going to start. You've got five seconds to  _ back the hell up _ before we see how many of your bones I can break in half a minute."

Jacket asshole sneered. "Oh yeah, I'm so scared of the guy in the pokemon pj's."

His friends snickered, and it made Tim want to test the tensile strength of their jaws.

First concern was the gun. The other guys didn't seem to have firearms, though he caught the glint of steel which he'd need to watch out for.

Pockets, something to throw- why did Tim only have a plastic spoon in his pocket? That wasn't exactly an ideal throwing weapon.

Fine. Five seconds was up, and Tim had no patience today. He'd make it work.

His shoes were slip-on, so Tim took a step forward and stepped on his own heel. The gun swung in his direction, and while he was pretty sure this guy was a shit enough shot he could dodge, he wouldn't take any chances with the kids so close by.

A sharp kick flung the shoe into Jacket Asshole's hand knocking the gun out of his grip and giving Tim the time to close the distance. He kept low, just in case, and surged upwards into Asshole's jaw and  _ oh _ the crack he got was satisfying.

Not the end though.

Asshole tried to swing and Tim ducked around him, putting himself in front of the kids and giving him a lovely opening to kick out his knees and then drive a heel into the back of his head. Then it was eyes up, and ignoring the way the world spun.

This was a lot of guys to take without a weapon. So, creativity. Tim snapped the end off his spoon, leaving him with a piece of splintered sharp plastic, and herded the kids towards the new opening so graciously left by Asshole.

"Luke, the place we were talking about the other night; take the kid and go!" He didn't look to see if Luke nodded, but the sound of sneakers on asphalt was good enough for him.

One of Asshole's friends made to follow, but Tim sidled in front of him. "Come on now, we haven't even gotten acquainted yet. Don't go running off on me just yet."

And that was a knife, swinging at his head. Very friendly. Tim ducked and nearly keeled over at what that did to his balance, so he grounded himself by driving his makeshift shiv into the guy's leg and using it as a pivot point to throw the guy over his shoulder as he stood. The  _ thunk _ from behind him was gratifying, even as it meant he needed to  _ move  _ or risk being surrounded.

The girl in front of him couldn't have been more than twenty-five, but she clearly knew her way around a street-brawl, surging forwards with a feint that Tim nearly stumbled into despite seeing coming. As it was, his dodge cost him his footing and he turned the slip into a sweeping kick that another guy tried to stomp on.

Already, Tim was out of breath and his chest ached. He didn't have the stamina to do this clean and professional. Quick and dirty would have to do.

Fists, elbows, knees. Back to the basics. Tim worked his way back outside the grouping with a flurry of blows to the girl that left her looking as dazed as he felt and earned him a knick to his ear. 

The sting was another grounding point.

It was her fallen knife he scooped up to block the next blade swinging for his head, but it was his knuckles that met the offender’s throat, and his foot to another’s hip that spun them away while he went for the KO. An axe-kick past the hands clutching at their throat to give that extra  _ bounce _ into the ground.

One of them was making a break after the kids, and that was something Tim would  _ not _ allow. But hey, a knife was a much better throwing weapon than a spoon. Tim took the extra time to steady his hand, just to be certain that the knife buried itself in the back of the runner’s knee. They went down with a scream.

The two remaining thugs tried to pincer him; one left and going high, the other right and going low. Only one had a knife, so he took the punch to his gut to avoid the blade in the eye, and used the momentum to slam the top of his head into Knife Girl’s cheekbone. He could feel it give, and her cry and flinch gave Tim some space to bite back the blackness at the edge of his own vision. 

Her friend with the fists took advantage of his stun to hit him again, twice, before Tim’s guard twitched back into place and then it was redirecting the blows behind him just in time to disrupt Knife Girl’s regroup. Knee to the crotch and up swing of an elbow with a downwards hammer to send him to the ground.

Pivot. Assess.

Various levels of movement, but nothing that seemed likely to cause a problem. The only one who even looked like they’d be going anywhere, funnily enough, was the guy still trying to crawl despite the knife in his leg. 

Was denim dragging across asphalt accompanied by little whimpers the sound of an informant? Well in this case Tim thought it just might be.

“Hey buddy,” Tim called. The guy flinched into himself and scrambled for a better grip as he tried to move faster. “Any chance you’ll play nice and tell me what, exactly, a bunch of losers was doing harassing a couple of kids?”

No response beyond the little sad sounds increasing in volume. Tim carefully makes his way over, wouldn’t do to trip now, and comes to a stop in front of him. “I’m talking to you. Who the fuck pulls a gun on a ten year old?”

An unintelligible mutter.

“Come on, speak up.” Tim gently placed one foot on top of a grasping hand and shifted his weight forward. “You were plenty brave earlier, what with your five armed friends against a couple of elementary students.”

“We were just supposed to pick up the girl and that brat was getting in the way!” the man finally snapped, glaring up at Tim. It was more sad than intimidating. Points for tenacity, though.

Now they were getting somewhere. Tim leaned a little harder, twisting his foot just a touch. “Who were you picking her up for?”

“Some guy! Fuck man I dunno, he had some money and wanted the kid brought to an apartment over in the Bowery. That’s all. It’s just a job, man!”

Only a little more convincing was needed to get the address, and a little threatening about just how inadvisable it would be to follow him, and Tim was off.

He had a couple of kids, and hopefully a dog, to retrieve. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I managed to finish this before the end of the month! Once again, thanks to all the stuff I wanted to avoid by working on this instead. Also to Replacement Robin for all the wonderful support. (Also also I've only half-edited so I'll probably tweak some things later?)
> 
> Tim is legally not allowed a break, sorry guys. And fighting people while sick sucks, but he is Doing His Best, and they suck anyways. I didn't mean for Tim and Bruce to interact, but Bruce was WorryingTM and his Sad Orphan radar went off, and at that point it was out of my hands. But will he remember this weird little encounter? Only time will tell!
> 
> Thanks for all the patience and taking the time to read this! If you enjoy I'd love to hear about it but I also take positive vibes. Have a great day!!


	9. Chapter 9

While Tim had seven different locations scoped out thus far, the only one he had started work on was an old bungalow with water damage three quarters of the way up the wall and some structural issues in some load-bearing beams. Thus far he had gotten around to making sure nothing would collapse, but it wasn’t passing any health inspections any time soon. 

Luke and Jason had been helping with the construction, with  _ very _ careful supervision. It usually ended up being one of them playing with Redbird while the other worked on clearing out rotted drywall or something similar. Things that were helpful, but safe for a couple of malnourished kids.

Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the location he had discussed with Luke over dinner. Instead, they had argued over whether or not an abandoned bodega could be easily converted into a safehouse. The answer they had come to was probably not. Hopefully, Luke knew the way there from here. If he had gotten lost that would make Tim’s job several times harder.

Hell, Tim wasn't entirely sure the best route there. Not through the fog in his head, anyways. The longer it took him to find them, the longer that kid would be scared, so there was no excuse for wasting time.

There was also the matter of where Redbird had run off to, probably spooked by the gunshot. She couldn't exactly have gotten far, but she was more than small enough to fit into an awful lot of hiding spots and if Tim had to get on his knees to start checking under bins he would probably cry. He could try calling her, if he didn't mind letting everyone nearby know his exact location.

It was probably worth it, unless the gang of idiots had friends who wanted to watch them get their asses kicked before stepping in. Possible, since Gothamites were known for being kind of douchey, but unlikely enough. Final answer; probably worth seeing if Redbird would come running to her name.

Yelling hurt, yelling hurt  _ a lot,  _ and left him doubled over and coughing into his knees.  _ Fuck _ , his chest burned. But it was worth it to come back to himself with a little distinct head bumping at his knees.

"Hello, beautiful." Tim murmured, fingers twitching for fur but not dumb enough to drop down when he wasn't sure he would be able to stand up again. "Wanna help me go find our boy? He's got a little kid with him, and I'm worried about them."

She looked up at him with soft eyes and quietly  _ woofed _ her agreement. What a good girl.

A little less alone now, Tim put aside the aches and shakes, and turned back to the street. Work to do.

Tim wouldn't be able to pick a single face he passed out of a line-up, later, but he was still sharp enough to pick up intent. He ducked into and out of alleys, avoiding people with a sharpened desperation in their shoulders and eyes. No need to give them what they would see as an easy target. And no need to get into more fights than were absolutely necessary. Mindfulness training meant Tim could practically feel his fever slowly ticking hotter as the world around him slipped further out of focus. It would be disconcerting if he had the presence of mind to be worried about that kind of thing. As it was, Tim was running the odds on Luke successfully getting to the bodega.

Luke was sneaky, and it was the middle of the afternoon. People were less likely to out and out jump a couple of kids in broad daylight. Unless whoever had sent those morons after the kid had more people looking, Tim had faith Luke would get them there safely.

Of course, he had to jinx it.

At least this time there wasn't a gunshot, just shouting.

Tim picked up his pace again, and tore around the corner to see Luke and the kid  _ once again _ being accosted by a group of people, only this time they weren't alone.

"Who the fuck do you think you are trying to snatch a couple of kids off the goddamn street, you fucking pedo pieces of shit? Get the hell out of here before I rip off your dicks and show you the  _ real _ meaning of 'go fuck yourselves!'"

Well it was good to know Jason had always been like that, and the language wasn't an unexpected by-product of the Pit. Also, holy shit, Tiny Jay. There wasn't enough soap in the  _ world _ for that.

The goons weren't even really trying to engage, instead doing their damnedest to stay out of range of Jason's tire iron while trapping the two older children and isolating the small girl. It wasn't going well, since she had latched onto Luke's shirt and was holding on for dear life.

Tim wasn't going to turn down the element of surprise when it was handed to him on a silver platter, so he poured on the speed ( _ thank you _ , soft rubber soles that didn't slap against concrete) and jumped.

One elbow wrapped around the throat of the guy to his right, and his calves locked around the one to his left, and with Tim  _ torqued _ his torso, abs burning, to throw them both to the ground hard. Release in time to land on his feet, and then punch the closest goon in the solar plexus before he even knew what was happening.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tim saw Jason recover surprisingly quickly from a slack-jawed "Holy shit," to use the momentary shock to break the wrist of the sneaky creep reaching for Luke and his little companion.

Bless his violent little heart.

With one unconscious, two rolling around on the ground trying to remember how to breath, and one clutching his arms to his chest and cursing up a storm, that left only one moron standing who seemed to realize he was very suddenly outnumbered. He made to run, as if that was going to fly, but managed only two steps before tripping over Redbird.

She really was the best girl.

Tim strolled over, hiding the hitch in his step, and pausing beside his head.

"Let me guess; some guy hired you to take the kid back to some place in the Bowery, and no you don't know anymore because it's, quote, 'just a job, man.'" It wasn't intentional that his enunciation sharpened a touch, but the fear on the man's face ratcheted up a notch at the prospect that, just maybe, he had pissed the wrong person off. Someone more dangerous than a protective older sibling.

Jason cautiously approached, even as Redbird bounced over to Luke. The tire iron was hefted and ready to go.

The man's eyes darted frantically between them, and he squeaked out what could generously be called a 'yes.' Tim was sore, exhausted, and not inclined to feeling overly generous right now. He held out an open hand to Jason.

A pause, in which Tim didn't look away from the very stupid man on the ground despite feeling Jason's gaze turn to him. Evaluating.

Cold metal pressed into his palm, warmed slightly in places from small fingers.

The iron wasn't quite long enough to do this standing up, so Tim dropped into a crouch and pressed the flat edge up under the man's chin and tilted his head into forced eye-contact. "Sorry, what was that? I'm not feeling great so you'll have to forgive some hearing troubles."

"Yes," came again, just as squeaky despite the raised volume.

"So you were willing to go kidnap a young girl on the word of someone you've never met before for what, a hundred dollars?" He pressed a little harder, partly for himself because the crying behind him had only gotten softer rather than stopping, and partly in the hopes it would make Jason stop shaking with rage beside him.

The man looked like he might pass out, or wet himself maybe, but he managed another assenting noise.

No need to go passing around unnecessary concussions, no matter how stupidly selfish someone was. Tim pressed the iron harder into his throat, cutting off his air and starting a mental countdown. "Maybe you should rethink some of your life choices. It is one thing to be desperate enough to do something stupid, and it is another to be so desperate you're willing to hurt  _ kids _ . Perhaps you should decide if your situation is really that bad just yet."

A brief attempt at struggling was cut off by Jason's foot coming down hard enough to break a couple of fingers. A relatively minor injury, and not really one worth admonishing him over. It's not like the guy didn't deserve it.

By the time Tim’s count hit zero, the man had stopped twitching and Jason had returned to Luke’s side.

Tim followed, at a distance, and stopped about six feet back. Sometime during his impromptu teaching moment, the two men who had been struggling for breath had picked themselves up and made a run for it. Tim watched them go, and very carefully set aside the desire to go after them. He couldn’t run for that long right now. Even just standing still, he could feel the knot of yet another coughing fit twisting tighter and tighter with every breath.

“Is he dead?”

The words were so very small, smaller, even, than the tiny girl they came from, and they were like a weeping wound in Tim’s chest.

“No, just unconscious. Do you have anywhere safe you can go, somewhere these people won’t be able to find you?” He kept his voice soft, and his hands firmly down, half-wishing he could set down the tire iron without probably startling her further. 

His efforts were largely in vain, the girl’s sobbing picking up volume again as she buried her face in Luke’s shoulder.

“That’s okay, there are a couple of places we know you can go to, if you’re willing to trust us. Would you like to stay with adults, or would you prefer just kids?” Tim didn’t have anything up to any kind of safety standard for kids, but he could put them up in his apartment, and crash in one of the half-finished safe houses. It would depend on whether the girl wanted the security of an adult or whether she couldn’t trust even that far. 

Something about his words was enough to get her to peak up at him, a big doe eye catching his and tear tracks shiny against her dark skin. “You won’t take me back to the scary people?”

Tim let his knee hit the concrete and did his best to hold her gaze. “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you never have to see them again. My name is Alvin, that’s Luke holding you, and Jason who saved you both. We’d like to help you, if you’ll let us.”

She didn’t let go of Luke, and she didn’t stop crying, but the little girl fully faced him and hiccoughed. “Please.” 

\--

Tim took them back to his apartment, leaving the door open while he went across the hall to ask Maggie to keep an eye on them and make sure they ate something because he had some business he needed to sort out. She got a look in her eye like she was ready to fight him on that, but Maggie held in whatever comment on his appearance she so clearly wanted to make when she caught sight of Luke gently introducing the little girl to Redbird.   
  
“You have two hours. And you had better come back in one piece.”

“I’m just going to pick up some meds and have a conversation with a couple of people.” Tim tried a grin that only hurt in theory. “Nothing to be concerned about.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Meds and conversation, huh? In my day you lot at least tried to be subtle.”

“I have no idea what you mean, Maggie,” he said. “Two hours, I’ll be back. I promise.”

He left her locking her door and crossing the hall, muttering all the while about foolish young men getting in over their heads and refusing to get real jobs. Whatever that meant.

In the meantime, there was a pharmacy a couple of blocks over that he could get his antibiotics from and then he could go on to  _ discuss _ the downsides of trying to kidnap children to a few people. Really, he was just being a good samaritan by explaining to them what kind of things happen to people who think those kinds of things are a good idea.

Tim only half-paid attention to his route to the pharmacy, feeling fairly secure in the late afternoon sun. Two hours from now that might be a different story, but for now he could let his mind play with ideas on what exactly he was going to find at the address he got from the thugs. Off the top of his head, Tim was fairly certain it was an apartment building with a corner store attached, but given the occasional changes to infrastructure so far, he couldn’t be entirely certain it would be as he remembered it. 

First though, antibiotics so he could get over this stupid infection as quickly as possible. A little bell announced his entrance and the tech behind the counter caught his eye over the shelves. 

He had actually picked up this prescription before, so he was unsurprised by the thirty dollar price tag on a couple weeks course of medication, and he patiently endured the reminder to finish the entire thing even if he started feeling better. The techs gave it every time, but at least this one had the excuse of never having seen him before. 

Just as the tech stapled shut his little paper bag (a waste since he was going to take one straight and then put the bottle in his pocket), the door jingled open behind him, and he caught the tear-streaked face of a woman, about twenty-four if he had to guess, out of the corner of his eye. 

Manners, or investigation? Be polite, or be a detective?

Tim decided on a happy medium and stepped aside to begin perusing the variety of cough syrups on display, definitely not eavesdropping on the women at the counter.

“Suchi, it’s good to see you again. I know you ration it to make it last longer, but after a couple of extra weeks without you coming in I start to worry that finally backfired,” the technician said, probably a little louder than she meant to be.

A sniff and wiped tears. “I’m managing. Got evicted and was stuck trying to find anyone willing to buy everything I was able to carry out of there. At least I haven’t been eating enough to need much insulin anyways.”   
  
The tech passed across a tissue and glanced briefly at Tim, who tried to look very interested in the ingredients on a bottle of artificial cherry medicine. “It’s not much, but the bed I share with my daughter is a queen, we can probably fit you in if you need somewhere to stay. Or we can try and make something soft work in the kitchen if you’d prefer a little privacy.”   
  
“Thank you. I promise it won’t be for long, and I’ll pay for groceries I swear. I just need a little time to pay off some debts and then I can deal with everything else.” Suchi said, biting back more tears.

“It’s no trouble,” the tech smiled softly. Tim got the feeling he was intruding on something. “I know how hard you work, and it’s not your fault your medication is so expensive. I’ll go grab it, you just take a break for a second. Lord knows you need one.”

It wasn’t exactly news to Tim, he thought as the tech backed away from the counter and Suchi half-collapsed against it, that trying to pay for necessary medical care ruined a lot of lives in Gotham. However, he didn’t often see the people doing their best to make it work and failing despite themselves; usually it was just the people who turned to crime to pay their bills that he ran into. Sure his antibiotics were relatively cheap, even the ones he needed to take regularly, but a lot of things weren’t, and, like Luke had mentioned earlier, there weren’t any safe and cheaper alternatives. People could shell out hundreds of dollars for what would definitely do its job, or they could try their luck with street products and risk their lives to save a little money. 

No wonder so many vulnerable people were trapped in the worst parts of Gotham. 

In the back of his head, as he re-read the chemical components of cough syrup for the fifth time, Tim’s gears started turning.

There were plenty of drug smuggling operations across the city, how hard would it be to re-purpose one or two to focus on life-saving drugs rather than amphetamines? It’s not like there wasn’t a market for them, and it was actually more rational  _ not _ to cut them with anything addictive because loyalty would come just as easily from efficacy as from chemical dependence. These people were already dependent on one thing, and already desperate. No need for any of the grooming drug dealers usually had to do to keep clients. All they would need to do would be to offer their product below market rates, and people would come.

It would save lives, creating a safe and affordable alternative, and potentially forcing the more dangerous competitors selling tainted product to either clean up their act or sidle more firmly into the illegal drug industry.

The bell chimed again, and a middle-aged man with a small girl entered the store, breaking Tim’s train of thought and reminding him about what other business he had to take care of today. Best to put a pin in anything else until he figured out who exactly were the “scary people” the little lady in his apartment was afraid of.

And possibly until after a nap of some kind.

Priorities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little later than a month, but in my defense I did write a whole separate fic in that time as well! At least I actually finished that one, I say as all my other unfinished and unposted WIPs judge me from my drive. You'd think I'd get more writing done with all this free time, and yet.
> 
> Tim can officially add another child to his growing roster, and a whole sidequest to his to-do list. He may never get that nap, the poor bastard. But at least he has medication and something resembling a plan! Probably, at least.
> 
> How does everyone feel about his ever growing schemes? I'm having more than a little fun coming up with ways for Tim to try and fix Crime Alley, but I am _definitely_ open to suggestions.
> 
> Anyways, drop a comment if you feel like it, and I will definitely scream about it quietly. Hope you enjoyed the read, and have a great day!


	10. Chapter 10

By the time he was finally approaching the address those thugs had been generous enough to provide him with, Tim’s headache had settled into a spike of pain at the base of his skull. Taking his first does of antibiotics had done nothing to relieve that, but he hadn’t really expected it to. Those would need some time and another couple of doses to really start working. Tim could manage until then.

His memory had been right; the little corner store he remembered lit up drew his eye first. Whether it was the same one from years in the future, he wasn’t actually sure, but it didn’t really matter. What did matter was deciding if he was going to approach this like a concerned citizen, or an angry vigilante. Front door, or window. 

In the end, a coughing fit decided for him. Climbing even two stories up the side of a building wasn’t a good idea right now, not when he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t lose his grip and fall. So to the stairs it was.

The door to the foyer was locked, presumably to try and minimize break-ins and keep non-tenants out, but the lock was cheap enough Tim could jiggle it open with a pick without much effort. It mostly just looked like he was wrestling with a sticky key. Idly, Tim reminded himself to look into upgrading his building’s locks into something better than these glorified latches. Sure a good enough criminal could pick most things, but these weren’t even a deterrent, just an illusion of security.

Bruce had drilled into his head that a bad lock was oftentimes more dangerous than no lock at all.

Tim was absolutely not winded by the two flights of stairs, he was just a little wheezy because his lungs were trying to quit on him. He would not be held responsible for a bodily mutiny, he  _ wouldn’t _ .

As it was, Tim took an extra moment to assess the door he stopped in front of. Old wood, paint peeling at the edges of the frame, stained brass knob. Not a whole lot of effort had gone into upkeep here, that was for sure. It didn't look like there were any extra security measures around it, but the door swung inward, which meant plenty of opportunity for nasty surprises hidden where he couldn't see them. So it was time for a classic maneuver to get inside: blatant and suspiciously friendly lies.

He knocked. "Hello? I think I got some of your mail, but honestly the numbers on this thing are hard to read, so I was hoping you could just confirm you know this sending address? It looks like it’s some kind of nursing home or something."

Calculated gamble; no way anyone living in the Bowery could afford to put someone in long-term care,  _ unless _ they were only in the Bowery for the cover it provided for criminal activities. People who could afford to send multiple groups out after one kidnapped little girl wouldn't live in a place like this.

Approaching footsteps had Tim shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet. If this turned into a fight, between the enclosed space and his various achy joints, it was going to be a brutal one.

A brief pause; whoever it was looking through the peephole, probably. Too bad for them Tim could tell the glass was cloudy and out of alignment, meaning his image would be blurry and warped. No way they could see his hands and the damning lack of a letter there. The click of a lock sliding out of place, and the rattle of a chain. Three, two, one-

"You don't fucking live here. Who the hell are you?" The man glared at him, eyes bloodshot and wet. Jaundiced lips peeled off of yellow teeth. "And you don't have no fucking letter."

From deeper inside the apartment, Tim heard a hgh stifled sob, as if someone very young was trying to stay quiet. The ache in his chest froze over. On an unbidden impulse, Tim thumbed a button on his belt that started an audio recording.

Tim grinned up at the man, tilting his head the inch needed to look him in the eye. "No I certainly do not. But I bet you don't have a good reason to be kidnapping little girls off the streets either, so I guess neither of us are saints.”

"Fucking 'scuse me?" he snarled, hands balling into fists and making an attempt to loom. As if that was going to make Tim back down when he could see the minute twitch of his head to one of the doors Tim could just see past him.

Didn't take a genius to guess what was behind it.

"You can either release whatever poor kid you've got stuffed away, and I'll only drop evidence of your drug dealing off at the 53rd precinct; you know, the one who's captain lost a sister to some sex slavers when she was a kid? Or, if you want to be difficult about this, I can break both your wrists and your collarbone, and then go tip off the cops to your whole human trafficking gig as well. Your call." Tim was bluffing. Sure he was pretty sure this guy was guilty (recent smoke damage on the ceiling with colouration suggesting weed, tell-tale powder in between the tiles, and not-at-all suspicious lengths of rubber hose on the counter, but only signs of alcohol abuse on the man himself suggesting he was using other's addictions to feed his own and letting them use here), however at this point he had basically no evidence, and no Gotham cop was coming anywhere near the Bowery for a nobody drug dealer on hearsay. The human trafficking angle might get a police presence, if he could back it up with something resembling evidence, but right now all he had was the girl at his apartment, and there was no way in hell he would ask her to talk to the cops if she didn't want to. 

Especially when it wasn't her word he was going off of, pulling his conclusions from the sparse furniture of what Tim could see (an apartment for business in other people's pleasure, not a place of residence), and the amount of money he suspected was involved in this particular operation. Circumstantial, all of it. Enough for a vigilante to act on, but worthless to a cop. Unless Tim could get an admission. 

The question was, did this guy know all of that?

Based on the way his eyes widened and the pulse in his forehead picked up, the answer was a resounding no.

"You can't fucking prove shit. You know what people do to snitches around here, punk? I can make sure you fucking find out," he spat. Close, but this wasn't horseshoes.

Tim laughed at him, baldfaced and bold. Distantly, he felt the action tearing at his chest, but he pushed that down as a Later Tim problem. Right now, he had a role to play. "People don't like snitches, but they like pedophiles even less, you fucking creep. I'm sure I can get people to forgive the snitching just this once. Hell, I think the real complaint I’ll get is that I didn’t just kill you myself.”

"You piece of shit. What if I just kill you now, or break your legs and hold onto you while I find a buyer, huh? Cheekbones and eyes like that, someone'll pay a pretty penny for you, I'm sure." Usable, but Tim was sure they could do better.

“I dunno, I think I’m a little too old for most of your contacts. Might take a while, and somehow I doubt you’ll be able to cut a deal with any kind of efficiency.” The shit-eating grin was critical, big and shiny and in his face, but so was the casual dismissal.  _ Look at me, look how I don’t respect you, tell me why I should; _ a great big dangling lure.

And the ugly, wonderful,  _ easy _ idiot bit.

“Smugass little fucking  _ shit _ , you don’t know a thing about who you’re fucking with!” he shouted, all bruised ego and fragile masculinity. “I’ve got a dozen guys bringing me pretty street rats and hobos, and by no fucking means are you the oldest I’ve ever sold. I can get you out of the city in thirty six hours flat, and it’ll be the worst fucking hell I can find because  _ no one _ comes and fucking threatens me!”

Yet another thank you to Gothamite arrogance. Every time, like a charm.

Although the laugh bubbling in his chest this time would have been more genuine, Tim shoved his triumph down. There was still a crying child that needed his help. “No, see I think  _ you’re _ the one with no idea what you’re fucking with. And I’m losing my patience. Get out of my way before voluntary movement stops being an option.”

For a beat, then two, Tim thought he had pulled it off and that the trafficking asshole was going to back down. As if his life could be that easy.

Instead of stepping away from the door, the man took an aggressive step forward, hand reaching behind him for what Tim would put money on being a gun.

Nope, nope, nippity nope. Tim’s head hurt too much to do this. Tim lashed out fast, starting with a high kick at the man’s collarbone- he had made a promise after all- and smacking the gun to the floor as he brought his foot down. He took the opening to get closer. 

Except that was a mistake. The man may have stumbled with the blow, but his free hand snapped out too quickly for Tim’s black-edged vision to really track. His fist connected with the side of Tim’s head, driving him back into the hallway.

Tim’s guard came back up, but he wasn’t confident in its ability to take hits. At least that thought was accurate; the follow up of blows rained against his arms and smashed through.

One, two, too many to count with his head spinning like a top. There were words being spat against him, but Tim couldn’t care less. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t focus, all he could do was brace himself against the hall wall and try to stay on his feet. 

His knee gave out, and Tim dropped with it, just thankful to be out of reach. Not for long, the man reaching down to grab at his shoulders ( _ didn’t go for a kick, no combat training _ ), but Tim locked his hands around his wrists, straining to push him back. Gravity wasn’t on his side, so he had to even it out. Tim dug his thumbs into tendons, and twisted his body with bruising force to the ground, snapping one with the sharp change in angle and force, and cracking the other into the wall. 

This particular move also had the disadvantage of bringing down the man’s weight against him, though he seemed a little busy screaming to resume punching Tim.

A door slightly down the hallway opened up, but Tim couldn’t see whoever it was that looked. Whoever it was didn’t say a word and closed the door moments later.

Tim heaved his way free, arms shaking. He allowed himself a count of two before pushing himself to his feet and turning his attention again to the task at hand. The man on the ground curled closer to the wall, quieter now. After a moment of consideration, Tim kicked him once in the head, hard enough to daze but not enough that it ought to be a serious injury.

Fuck, Tim didn’t even know his name.

This whole intimidating-people-without-information thing would be so much easier if he had the bulk to back it up. No one ever took his physical threats seriously until after they’d seen him put someone face-first into the floor. Maybe he needed to start carrying a flashier weapon, since this was apparently becoming a habit.

That or he actually needed to start rebuilding his admittedly kind of stalker-y dossiers on Gotham’s population. 

Both would probably be safest. Contingencies, and all that.

From inside the apartment, another soft sob echoed into the hall. The kid.

Tim made his way slowly into the apartment, scooping up the handgun, unloading it, and tucking it into his hoodie, and called out, “Hello? I’m not here to hurt you. The man who was is currently occupied, and I’d like to get you out of here, if you’ll let me.”

A sniffle came from behind the door the asshole had been dumb enough to implicate earlier. Tim was careful not to approach it too quietly, and rapped gently.

“My name is Alvin, I found this place helping another little girl. Right now she’s with my neighbour, an old lady named Maggie who thinks I’m an idiot, and a couple of kids who hang around my apartment sometimes and I can’t get them to leave. Jason and Luke. Would you like to come meet them? We don’t have dinner plans yet as far as I know, but since I’m pretty sure they’re staying to eat, we can make sure there’s enough for you too.”

The door cracked open, just enough to make out a suspicious eye squinting at him. “How do I know you’re not just lying to get me to come with you?”

Tim allowed himself to shrug. “I’d offer to call the apartment, but I don’t have a landline and I have no idea if Maggie has one. I could call the police here, and you could go with them instead, if you’d prefer, but the jerk isn’t going to stay down for much longer and we should both at least leave the building.”

While she was making up her mind, Tim snapped a few pictures of the apartment living room. He needed as much evidence as he could get if he wanted this guy actually arrested, and Tim doubted his injuries alone would stop him from trying to hurt people.

At this point, managing scared and skeptical children was becoming old hat, so it only took a little more negotiation (Tim promised cookies he was fairly confident were still hidden in his bedroom) and a carefully non-threatening demeanour to convince the small girl to come out. She looked similar enough to the one back at Tim’s place that he suspected they may be sisters, though she was maybe thirteen to the other girl’s eight. He hoped their parents were dead or out of their minds with worry, because the most obvious alternative left a thick, tar-like taste in his mouth.

The little girl introduced herself as Marianne, and refused to touch Tim until she saw the fallen figure in the hall, and then she was clinging to the hem of his hoodie and refused to let go. She was incredibly patient when, half a block away, Tim collapsed against a wall in a coughing fit, and didn’t say a word. 

She also didn’t let go of him, just shifted her grip to help hold him up instead.

Walking through Gotham at sundown wasn’t ideal, far from it, but they didn’t have a choice. Tim could only imagine what inviting targets they made, a couple of small figures and one clearly sick, and it left him antsy and on edge until they were in sight of his building. Even then he didn’t relax, just pointed it out and picked up the pace. Marianne was clearly tiring, probably hadn’t really eaten or slept in at least a few days, but she followed doggedly with a stubborn set to her shoulders. 

On the stairwell Tim was forced to stop again, but he could just about make out voices he was certain were Jason and Luke, as well as a quieter one that must be their guest, and he tried to communicate that to Marianne using a series of gestures. Whether she understood them or not, she stayed by his side until he unbent and dragged himself up the last flight.

Sure enough, the door to his apartment was open, as was Maggie’s and it sounded like everyone was in his living room. The girl was definitely talking, though it sounded like it was mostly directed at Redbird, and at the sound of her voice Marianne finally broke away from Tim and sprinted down the hall.

Tim was glad his guess about them being related had been right, but he was less glad to be suddenly abandoned and he was forced to catch himself with one hand as his legs tried to shake out from under him. The combination of his infection, his relatively minor injuries, and the post-fight adrenaline crash was as effective as a bat to the knees. 

His head hurt. His chest hurt. Hell, he could feel his heartbeat in his  _ eyes _ and it was honestly unsettling.

He tried to focus, he just needed to get into his apartment and he could pass out in his own bed, but he felt like one giant, pulsing bruise, and just the idea of standing up again ached.

Squeezing his eyes shut didn’t help anything, but at least it stopped the ground from swimming around under him. Sort of. 

Just so he could catch his breath.

Except when he opened his eyes the blackness only partially pulled back and the fist in his chest curled tighter. He hacked into the floor, hard enough to gag and tear at his throat, but at least it got some of the fluid out of his lungs. Not enough, though.

Distantly, he heard shouting from down the hall, but what cut through his daze was the scrape of a tongue against his cheek, which was quickly followed by hands on his shoulders. They were small, but there was a lot of them, too many to really keep track of, and they helped tip him back onto his heels.

More voices, quieter this time, and a gentle touch across his stinging face, and then Tim was being dragged back to his feet despite his whine of protest. Movement, blurred and painful, that seemed to last an age, until his supports shifted around and then lowered him onto something wonderfully soft. It smelt just a little bit like fur and cheap detergent. A warm weight settled onto his stomach, and the hands and voices receded.

It still burned to breathe, and Tim couldn’t move much even if he wanted to, but maybe it would be okay, just this once, to let himself sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who has two thumbs and did a bunch of writing but none of it complete and almost none of it for this fic? This gal!!
> 
> That's actually a lie, this chapter is finished, but with four active WIPs open in my mentally labelled "Work Window" let alone all of the dormant ones, it sure feels that way sometimes. It's nice to have gotten this done though, and while the last section is barely edited, I'll come back to it again later for Actual Editing. That'll be sometime when I'm not in the middle of moving, hopefully.
> 
> But on this chapter! I meant for Tim to not get in a fight, but the guy was just so fighty and Tim has negative patience right now. Hopefully this doesn't read as too much like the last chapter, since even I got that vibe writing it. Hey though, he's finally taking a nap, so that's something. And maybe I'll actually be able to do another time skip soon (and use that Christmas section I started back in November :p), though somehow I seriously doubt it. 
> 
> Thanks all for reading and the continued support, it really means a lot to me!! I hope you're all doing well and staying safe, and that you all have a wonderful week <3


	11. Chapter 11

It was dark.

That was the first thing that Tim registered in… who knew how long. There was a lot of dark haze and warmth-that-bordered-on-too-much. Sometimes there was moisture, on his head or in his mouth. Sometimes there was an aching pulse that rippled through his whole body.

But mostly it was just dark.

That was okay, though. What little awareness Tim had doubted he could handle much more than the heat, the damp, the dark.

Eventually, the real world started to poke back in. Voices, swimming in and out of focus. Light, soft and steady turning his little world red.

Pain. Dull and old; the feeling of yellowing bruises and post-cast stiffness. 

“He’s going to owe us  _ so _ much pizza.” Young, anxious, familiar?

A snort, another voice. “Pizza is all well and good, but I want an actual  _ meal _ . With food from a real grocery store. There had better be at least two vegetables.”

Laughter, higher; very young boy or female? “You know you’ve got it bad when you start daydreaming about broccoli.”

More laughter, warm and happy though edged with a tiredness that triggered a spark of guilt. They shouldn’t be tired, it was his job to make sure they didn’t have to be.

That reminder, of purpose and responsibility, cut through the remaining softness holding Tim gently back from awareness, and he couldn’t help but groan as he forced his eyes open through the pain.

Still dark, but less. No window, light coming through an open doorway. He was in bed. He ached in a way that was unpleasantly reminiscent of the cold he had caught while searching for Bruce in Europe. Foreign bacteria could be nasty. Sure he hadn’t let it stop him, but he probably should have. Especially after his third near-miss with his grapple. 

Now, though, Tim was more cautious with himself. Those voices, the kids, he had promised them safety. He couldn’t afford to take himself out through negligence, not when they were just starting to rely on him.

It took more effort than he’d like to admit to get his hands underneath him, but Tim managed to shakily prop himself upright on the third try. Once there, he took a well-deserved break and focused on steadying his breathing without crossing the line into the coughing fit he could feel lurking just on the horizon. 

Future Tim problems.

Tim allowed himself a hundred count before he shoved his legs over the edge of the mattress, and forced himself to his feet. He took stock. Sore, everywhere; a sharp tightness in his lungs; points of acute tenderness scattered across his body, presumably from the scraps he had gotten in; foggy and thick thoughts. All manageable, if inconvenient. The real sticking point was the trembling he couldn’t stop. It’d be fine, he just wouldn’t get into any more fights until he wasn’t shaking so hard.

Feeling unfairly like a baby deer, Tim carefully picked his way toward the kids; voices and into the main room of his apartment. All conversation stopped when a brief stumble had him catching himself on the wall.

“Morning, chipmunks,” Tim croaked even as he tried to leverage himself further upright.

“Alvin!” Luke was fastest to respond, barreling forward to latch onto his elbow, but Jason was quick to follow, and even the girls approached cautiously. 

“Should you even be up and walking?” Jason asked, not quite touching, but with hands at the ready to catch or stabilize. “You’ve been out for over twenty-four hours.”

That wasn’t surprising, though Tim did feel a pang of guilt for leaving them all alone for so long. He also felt the need to do inventory to make sure no one had stolen something while he was unconscious. They were good kids, but good kids in terrible situations with sticky fingers.

“Sorry about that. I had been planning on taking it easy until my garbage immune system got back in gear, but something came up,” Tim grimaced. “Have you all eaten?”

Apparently his question and blatant discomfort were enough for Luke to nod emphatically, and for the little girl, Layla she loudly introduced herself, to start rambling about the stew Maggie had made for them from the ‘abysmal selection of produce’ in Tim’s cupboards (she said that in an impression of the old woman that turned the inside of Tim’s chest warm and goopy), and the apple slices that had been breakfast, and the sandwiches for lunch, and, and, and.

Marianne was staring at him. He was doing his best to ignore that without ignoring  _ her _ , but it was more than a little unnerving. When she finally spoke, her voice was stiff and edged, like she was bracing for a blow. “Chipmunks?”

“You know, cause I’m Alvin,” Tim gestured vaguely between himself and the assorted hooligans filling his home. “Therefore there must be chipmunks. And look, here you are.”

Jason snorted. “Pretty sure that’s not how that works. Isn’t Alvin supposed to be one of the chipmunks? And a singer?”

“Creative license,” Tim shrugged, and gave his apartment a quick, assessing once over. And sure enough, one of the novelty plastic cups was gone from its usual place next to the tap. Called it. “Anyways, I believe I promised Marianne cookies, so I’m just going to grab those and the folder of what we’ve been working on, and if whoever decided to  _ borrow _ the Scooby-Doo cup would be so kind as to put it back, I might be inclined to share with everyone.”

Taking pity on them, Tim pretended not to hear the scramble of motion behind him as he carefully made his way back into his room to rescue the cookies from where he’d tucked them in sealed tupperware in a hole in his closet wall and the folder from the perilous stack of papers next to his bed. Walking was still a chore, but every step helped him pinpoint what exactly he was compensating for at the moment. He still couldn’t wait to sit down.

Thankfully, no one was sitting in his technically-unofficial seat at the kitchen table, so he collapsed with all of the grace he could be bothered with, which was to say, none at all.

The kids descended on the cookies like a pack of tiny raptors; with a vicious and strategic cunning that divided them up by some ineffable system of value until everyone had a pile in front of them. Jason had a handful, Luke a few more, Marianne had about the same as Jason, and Layla had the most of them all, though Luke was eyeing her pile like he was looking to change that. It wouldn’t be easy, with how closely Marianne was guarding both of their shares, but if he recruited Jason to the effort it might be manageable.

They were unfairly adorable.

While they managed their politics, Tim carefully laid out the relevant papers on the three in-progress safe houses, and the four prospective ones. His fingers itched for his computer so he could start falsifying the paper trails he’d need to purchase property as soon as he could find the money. 

Though he’d have to be careful about budgeting if he was looking to implement both the safe house system and his medical drug smuggling-and-or-production at the same time. Both were very necessary and Tim couldn’t really justify prioritizing one over the other. Theoretically, he might be able to eventually use the drugs to fund the safe houses, but that didn’t solve the problem of starting capital.

Still. He could worry properly about all that when he was closer to full-capacity. Or could at least walk around the block unassisted.

As the kids slowly worked through their hoards, Tim walked them all through what he had so far and what he was thinking of doing as he moved forward. It was review for Jason and Luke, except for some of the newer hypotheticals, but their attention barely wavered and their belief seemed to swallow the girls into focusing as well. Tim felt a little like he was giving a presentation to a board of directors, except he was actually emotionally invested in not just what decision they made but also in their well-being, which was very different than hoping Mr. Palmer would hurry up and have that “heart-attack” he was planning so he would step down to spend more time traveling and Tim could appoint someone less bullheadedly-cruel in his stead. 

It was a welcome change.

Belatedly, Tim realized he had even taken on that smooth, confident, upper class accent he used for WE work. Whoops. Too late now, he supposed. So he wound down and made a point to drop back into something more street-worthy as he made eye contact with each of them. “Any questions?”

“Is this some kind of joke?” Marianne demanded, sharp and suddenly on the offensive. Tim couldn’t really blame her, it was all rather a lot.

Still, he needed her to understand what he was offering them all. “No, it’s not. Sorry about the voice; it’s a bad habit. The trick to selling things to people is often  _ sounding _ right when you do it. Plenty of people start expecting to get scammed the second they hear someone from around here. Sometimes that’s fine, but others you need them as off-guard as possible.”

Marianne still looked skeptical, but Layla seemed fairly convinced and Luke and Jason had only seemed mildly exasperated by his vocal shenanigans. Still, it couldn’t hurt to give them some space to think by going to get something to drink.

So Tim went to stand up, only to immediately be shoved back into his chair by Jason. “Oh absolutely not, old man. You’re staying right there, unless you were planning on going back to bed.”

“I was just going to grab some water,” Tim said, raising his hands in surrender and settling back into his seat as Jason shooed Luke to go fill a mug from the sink and redirected a suddenly sulking Redbird into Layla’s hug-range.While it was kind of cute, the fussing, Tim wasn’t about to let these kids start picking up bad habits about backwards relationships with adults. It was not their responsibility to be his caretakers. 

Maybe he could give them some errands to run and they’d calm down? A little bit of agency and activity, topped off with feeling useful, to assuage any discomfort seeing Tim so sick might be causing.

Now, how to swing that without giving away what exactly he was doing?

Start with a joke, play it cool. “You know this isn’t the first time I’ve been sick, right? I don’t need my own team of nurses coddling me.”

Sure enough, Jason glowered at him and Luke scoffed. “If that’s true, why did we find you passed out in a hallway?”

“Extenuating circumstances. Unavoidable, really.” And there was step one, nice and neat. Tim sipped at his water and swallowed his meds. Now the redirect. “All I need to do is sleep, keep taking my meds, and drink a lot of water and I’ll be right as rain in a week or so. The only thing I’m actually concerned about is I promised to check in on a few people in the next few days, and if I don’t things might escalate for them.”

Luke did a stunning impression of Redbird, perking up as he caught the scent of  _ a job to do _ , and Marianne looked intrigued despite herself. There was an edge to Jason that told Tim he likely had some idea what was going on, but also that he was probably going to allow it anyways. Excellent. 

“We could do that!” Luke seemed thrilled for a split second, before he visibly stamped down on his reaction and followed it up with feigned indifference. “If you wanted, I mean. Give us something to do that’s not babysitting your gross, stupid face.”

“An adventure,” Layla gasped in delight, taking Marianne’s hand and swinging it wildly. “Mari, we’ve gotta, he helped us, so now we’ve gotta do his quest!”

Marianne was still skeptical, made worse by her sister’s immediate faith. That was a good reaction to keep, all things considered. “What kind of people? Where? And what do you mean by ‘escalation’?”

“Nowhere far, mostly just a handful of shop owners around the neighbourhood. They’ve had some problems with a couple of local gangs that I’ve been helping out with. I just want to be sure that no one’s been giving them trouble.”

This seemed to catch Jason’s attention, sharpening it into a vaguely uncomfortable point of pressure. Whatever came next was going to be a test of some kind. “And what exactly do you want us to do if there  _ is _ some kind of problem?”

Tim blinked. Was it not obvious…? “I’d want you to come back and let me know so I could do something about it. Or if it was unsafe to get close, I’d rather you didn’t try and just came straight back here, though that’s what I’d prefer you do any time you think you’re in danger. I couldn’t,  _ wouldn’t _ , ask you to do something you felt was unsafe. Hell, I’m not even asking you to do this,” Not quite a lie; he wasn’t asking, but he did want them to. “I was mostly just complaining because I get whiny when I’m sick.” Lie; there hadn’t been anyone to complain  _ to _ at first, and after that there was always something much more important going on. It was a good lie though. Tim just needed to keep the kids occupied enough they wouldn’t fixate on worrying about him. He was the adult; care-taking was his job, not theirs.

“No, no, we could totally do that,” Luke waved away his concern frantically. “It’s just people like the Vecellios, right?”

Some of the suspicion faded from Marianne’s expression (maybe she knew them?), and Jason relaxed again, more so than he usually did whenever he was around the apartment. Apparently Tim had passed whatever test his question had been.

Tim nodded. “Exactly like them. The Ibanescus shouldn’t be a problem for anyone around here anymore, but you know Gotham. There’s always another bunch of predatory jerks around the corner. I can give you guys some money to pick up pizza while you’re over there.”

“Oh, they’ve been giving me free pieces when I drop by, ever since you kicked those guys’ asses there,” Luke grinned.

They had, had they? Tim would have to see about getting them a thank-you gift of some kind. 

“Hey, language!” Mariana snapped, automatically before pausing. Tim could see her replaying Luke’s words in her head. “Wait,  _ this _ guy kicked someone’s ass? Are you  _ sure _ ?”

That was just rude. “You  _ saw _ a guy who I beat in a fight, why do you sound so surprised?”

“Well sure you beat  _ one _ guy, but he messed you up pretty bad. Is this a regular thing for you, barely winning fights and then passing out?”

Before Tim could even try to defend himself, Luke started off on a long, kind of confusing tangent about all the times he’d seen “Alvin totally wrecking dicks who had it coming.” It was kind of flattering, but did nothing for the headache blooming at the base of Tim’s skull.

“Okay, as much as I appreciate you defending my honour, Luke, that’s probably enough. To answer your question, Marianne, I don’t try to get into fights, but sometimes things come up and I can handle myself well enough that I won’t scare easy,” Tim said, bracing himself on the table and slowly,  _ slowly _ standing up. He had to wait out the immediate black that tried to swallow his vision, but he was  _ fine. _ “Now, I think I’m going to eat a granola bar and then pass out again if that’s alright by you lot.” 

This was not, technically, a lie. Tim had every intention of eating and sleeping enough to make most cats jealous. He was just also going to see what he could do about tracking down one of Crane’s secret labs. Why buy his own chemistry equipment when he could reappropriate some for a better cause? He already had some idea who was responsible for the illegal drugs coming into the city. Assuming he could find the money, it would be straightforward to get them to add some less harmful products to their usual fare. And if he could track down some labs around the city and convince a few workers to switch employers, he might not even need to get them to ship finalized medication, and could just get the necessary compounds. 

There was a lot of research he could get done, even if he was going to be stuck in bed for a while.

“Wait, you haven’t told us who you need to check on yet!” Luke objected, fluttering anxiously to Tim’s side.

Right. Errands. Tim rattled off a list of local names, people he saw around regularly even if he didn’t really talk to as many of them as he would have liked. The pizzeria, the pharmacy, a deli, a bodega, a couple of working girls who part-timed at a cafe, one of the garbage men who lived a block down. Little check-ins that gave him a general sense of where the community was at, and if anyone was in specific trouble. Nothing dangerous, not if they stayed together, but certainly enough to keep the four of them busy for the rest of the day.

He sighed, and ran a hand down his face as if that could wipe away the lingering dizziness. “If you’re going to insist on doing this for me, I’d appreciate if you all stayed together. While the specific man who was looking to hurt Marianne and Layla shouldn’t be a problem for the next while, you shouldn’t take any chances. Try to be somewhere safe before dark, please?”

Luke grinned up at him, all big dark eyes and trouble in his grin, and Tim thought about the two extra toothbrushes and the watermelon toothpaste in his bathroom, something quiet and warm and unidentifiable tightening behind his ribs. “We’ll be back before you have the time to miss us, weird guy.”

Tim ruffled his hair, and glanced quickly from Marianne to Jason, each giving a small nod in return. They’d make sure everyone got back safely.

“You’d better be. Who’ll steal all my juice and poptarts otherwise?” Luke batted Tim’s hand away as he spoke, but his smile stayed bright. “Now shoo, and let this perfectly-reasonably-aged man go to bed.”

The kids and dog left his apartment in a tiny stampede, loud enough he could hear them all the way to the stairwell even through his closed door. 

At this point, Tim could forge paperwork in his sleep, so he could work on that in a separate window while he focused on the puzzle of where he was going to be stealing supplies from.

Crane had always had a thing for setting up shop in low-income areas, usually close to the docks where supplies and test subjects were easy to obtain, so if Tim was lucky there might be a site not too far away he could raid. It’d be tricky to pin down anywhere for sure without doing the legwork, but he could probably identify possible locations at the least. And he’d had a few drug rings largely pegged for the last month or so, and had been thinking about stepping in as their territories started to encroach on Tim’s little neighbourhood, so maybe he could poach some labour from them. It wouldn’t take much for his recon on them to be twisted into blackmail, if it came down to it, after all.

Then there was the ever-looming problem of capital. Sure he could steal the money, goodness knew Cobblepot had it coming, but the issue with stolen money was it needed to  _ go _ somewhere. Tim could set up a hundred shell corporations to wire it through, but if someone was well and truly determined to find where it went, it would always be possible. Especially if they didn’t care about following the law to do so. Maybe Tim could falsify invoices for his technical services of varying, non-suspicious amounts? At least until he found a larger source of legitimate income.

And of course he would need some way to launder the money he  _ did  _ get from the medicine business since, greater good or not, it wasn’t exactly legal…

Hm. There was a lot to get done. Best to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there!! It has been Some Time since I've updated, and I'd like to apologize for that but I have been busy with Many Things (also while I did technically finish JayTim Week, I hated my last two fills so they're just sitting in my drive, taunting me and will likely never leave sorry).
> 
> But I'm back with a chapter, and I'm quite fond of it! Still no time-skip, still no Christmas, but lots of scheming and the kids got a change to be more than narrative props! I will admit that my research for these schemes was largely cursory and not at all in-depth, so please suspend your disbelief anywhere you think "wow this author really knows nothing about the actual logistics of organized crime!" because I don't but I Am Doing My Best. 
> 
> Tim is, of course, back on his bullshit of not sleeping when he should be, but he'll probably pass out again at some point after eating that granola bar, which, as we've established, Totally counts as a nap. Totally.
> 
> One of the things I've been busy with is I'm now in a podcast with some friends of mine and I edit the audio, which ends up eating a lot of what used to be Writing Time. It's called the Nerd Crusade, and we upload to youtube every Wednesday! The next episode is a "Who's the Best Robin?" debate, so if you want to hear a brief lecture on Dick Grayson's history, Me Loudly Having Opinions, and some Kind Of Rude But Honest Takes on Jason and Damian, feel free to check it out!  
Edit: Here's a link to the channel for anyone interested!  
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCrOHu7DOrXqA0brS6EBlslA
> 
> Thanks for all of your patience on this, and thanks as always to Replacement Robin for her endless patience and also Reacting to things in ways that motivates me to write them. I'd love to hear any thoughts on the chapter, the story, or just what your favourite fruit is, so please consider dropping a comment about any or all of that, and I hope you all have a wonderful day!!


	12. Chapter 12

The granola bar was less filling than Tim had hoped. It barely put a dent in the gnawing of his gut, but he was equally sure it was all he could safely keep down. And it had certainly been enough to knock out whatever animal instinct had been letting him cling to consciousness, since, according to the last edits he had made to his current research files, he had fallen asleep maybe ten minutes after finishing his snack.

At least he made something resembling progress with the work. His early instinct about the popular coffee shop had apparently been on to something, since, according to some of the deliveries scheduled to it from a variety of chemical companies that had _ no _ business anywhere near somewhere that was supposed to be in the food industry, there was something going on there that had very little to do with caffeine. If Tim was very lucky, he was correctly picking up some of what would be Crane's favourite red flags, about twelve years from now. If not, there was still bound to be some useful products and equipment to swipe before they could cause any more harm to the Alley's population.

What actually roused Tim from his unscheduled nap, was the clatter of movement at his door. Either someone with a key was struggling to get inside, or a very noisy criminal was trying to break in.

Tim would bet on the former, if he wasn't currently very carefully managing a budget.

Still, he should probably get up from where he had passed out at the table before they got inside and gave him an earful for not being in bed like he had said he would be. Or maybe he could play off his clearly recently woken up appearance to having definitely napped like he promised, and not the result of his traitorous body refusing to stay awake when he had things to get done. He was a good liar, he could pull this off.

After he got some water so his mouth stopped tasting so much like death, at least.

Carefully leveraging himself to his feet, Tim stood up just in time to nearly get run over by the kids as they finally popped the door open and swarmed his apartment. They were like giant, purposeless ants, all scrambling limbs and rustling cargo. Between them, they had about eight paper bags, though Luke appeared to also be carrying... Mail?

No, there was no way it was mail for any of them; Tim was fairly sure none of them had an actual address at the moment, after all. And while it was possible they had broken into the shitty mailboxes downstairs to pick up his mail for him, Tim couldn't fathom why he would have what looked like six separate letters. He wasn't even certain there were six adults who knew where he _ lived _.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Jason glowered at him, setting his four, delicately balanced bags down. Layla and Marianne carefully set their own bags down, Marianne scooping Layla's off the floor to add it to the growing pile on the table.

Tim tried a shrug and a grin, _ nothing to see here officer _. "I woke up and wanted to grab some water. Being sick is thirsty work, don't you know." And a redirect. "What's all of that stuff?"

"We stopped in with everyone you asked us to," Luke said, tapping the envelopes against the table to some kind of beat. "The Vecellios gave us some more names that they said we should go talk to for you. We got about one bag per place. Or an envelope, from the places that didn't deal in like. Food and stuff."

... What? Why would people be trying to give him things?

Jason spoke before Tim could ask, all false casual assurance. "Apparently, there's a handful of places around here that heard about your deal with them and wanted in. These are all, quote, 'deposits' belonging to basically every grocery store in a ten block radius, half of the pawn shops, and a decent percentage of the corner stores. You're going to have to go in person to the laundromat on 77th, though. Said they wouldn't agree to anything without meeting you first."

"Would have been easier if you had told us what to say beforehand," Marianne called from the recliner Luke had bullied him into getting where she was snuggled up beside Redbird and Layla.

And once again there were eyes on him, though at least it seemed more curious than anything like judging.

Tim needed to sit down, dry throat be damned. He collapsed back in his chair and in front of his computer. All of the kids but Jason were blocked by the towering bags. Jason, who was still staring at him expectantly. And why wouldn't he, since as far as he knew, he had just been sent out to collect on _ protection money. _

There may have been some miscommunication. Apparently.

He had to return this stuff, he couldn't just start extorting the local business owners because that was what they were expecting from him, that would be terrible.

Except... Returning things would without a doubt cause a mess. And from what he could see, these were some of the near exact supplies he had been trying to figure out how to procure for the safe houses...

Maybe he could go talk to the various shop owners in person and work out a relatively low cost trade of protection for just the bare essentials the kids would need. That wasn't extortion, right? It wasn't like he'd be asking for _ money. _That was just... Creatively coordinating community support for their disenfranchised youth.

Tim could probably work out an amount per site that wouldn't cause too many problems to their overall revenue while also compounding into enough to outfit the safe houses at least to start with.

A hand waving in his face broke through his reverie. "Hey, weird guy, are you broken? If you are, can I take Redbird?" Despite the flippant words, Luke's face was scrunched in genuine concern.

Right, scheming later, kids now. Tim could do this.

"Yes I'm fine, no you can't steal my dog" Tim laughed. It sounded a little forced even to his own ears. "Just spaced out for a second trying to think of where things are going to go from here. Thank you guys for doing that for me. You saved me a lot of legwork on that." And brought him just as much, if not more, to do in the future.

There was no mistaking the little lights that sparked in all of them at his words, even raspy as they were. Jason's ears reddened, Marianne refused to look at him, despite the way she grinned, though Layla had no such hang ups and smiled at him whole-heartedly. And there was nothing but warmth in Luke's face as his worry softened. These kids probably didn't hear much from adults that was positive. Something else for Tim to work on changing.

"It was nothing. You should've seen the looks on some of their faces when we turned up and said what we were there for," Jason shrugged, plucking an apple from a bag and inspecting it critically.

Yeah, Tim could imagine. Those were going to be fun conversations, trying to explain to adults why he had literal children doing his apparent dirty work.

Tiny paws hit the floor as Redbird wriggled herself into an impossible position and she slipped from the chair. Layla slithered after her, slipping to the floor and burying her face in Redbird's coat. Weeks of food and care really had done wonders for the tiny dog, finally more than skin, bones, and mange. Still, Tim was going to keep his careful monitor on her until she had more muscle on her. She was so _ tiny _.

“I’m sure you were all excellent representatives,” Tim said with mock seriousness. “But maybe you can just do a normal grocery run next time you insist on being helpful.” 

The real question was whether he should keep having the kids make these rounds for him. While it was certainly a good way to make them feel useful, they risked being identified as his associates and jumped. Maybe Time could find a way to make sure that no one even _ thought _ about touching the kids when they were doing rounds for him. Of course, there was always a random element in Gotham, and Tim wasn’t going to delude himself that he could protect them from _ everything _. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try, though.

But even thinking about that kind of theatrical intimidation made his head pound, so Tim set the details aside for the meantime.

For now, he was going to tease the hell out of these kids and try to give his immune system the time it needed to recover.

\--

A week and a half. 

That was how long it took before Tim could finally return to doing his own fieldwork. He _ had been perfectly fine, thank you very much _ at half that, but the chipmunks had ratted him out to Maggie, and between them all they had managed to keep him in his apartment until, quote, ‘he had more width and colour than a linen sheet.’

In that time, he had received another few bags of various supplies, and the kids had given him reports on the states of every safe house location, current and prospective. Luke had gotten a talking to when he had come home all scratched up three days in. Apparently, Layla had thought it was a good idea to climb up the stripped interior of a ramshackle house and Luke had caught her when she fell, incidentally shielding her when the remains of the wall had come down on top of them. While Tim commended his bravery, and really he couldn’t outright tell him not to do that kind of thing without being a massive hypocrite, he had warned the boy about the importance of taking care of keeping himself safe when helping others.

…

In retrospect that might still have been kind of hypocritical. Whoops.

At least there was one good thing that came out of his time trapped in his apartment on threat of angry children and a terrifying old woman. He had managed to do a usually mind-numbing amount of CTV stakeouts, and between that and skimming through nearly every delivery record in lower Gotham, Tim had cemented his suspicions about the coffee shop. Either it was a front for something, or they were putting some _ seriously_ dangerous chemicals in that coffee. Knowing Crane, it might be both.

Tim was taking a day trip to find out. He was setting aside the full afternoon just to be safe, given how large the line for that place got sometimes. Also because he liked the idea of sitting in a cafe to draft ideas for his semi-legal medicine plan after being stuck in the same tiny apartment for so long.

A change in scenery might help him figure out how to handle the problematic logistics of distribution. It would be pretty counterproductive if dealers cut his product to sell higher quantities, or laced it with their own unique hooks to keep customers. Not to mention the risks of exposing often desperate non-users to people motivated to foster addictions. But it wasn’t like he could just give his stuff to pharmacies to sell to people instead of their ridiculously more expensive prescriptions.

Or could he?

Looked like Tim had picked a good day to come for his recon, the line to Your Morning Beans only spanning about a third of the block. He might make it in the door within the hour after all. Whether he was lucky enough to actually snag a table, well. Tim wouldn’t hold his breath.

Secretly, Tim was a little glad he had been forced to put this off until he was back to full health. The sun was fairly aggressive, and even with the shorter line, he was going to be stuck standing around for quite a while. Doing this while still struggling to breathe would have been not quite a nightmare, but certainly very unpleasant.

Tim was so lost in thought, comparing what little he knew about the handful of pharmacies across Crime Alley and their staff to determine who would be best to approach with his proposal, that he completely missed the approaching person until he was being loomed over.

“Hey champ, fancy seeing you here!” A shadow and a booming voice cut through Tim’s thoughts, and a warm hand clamped down on his shoulder before his ingrained flight instincts could even start looking for an out. “How have you been? It seems like ages since we’ve last seen each other.”

If there was one thing Tim hadn’t missed about his own time, it was dealing with Bruce’s daytime personas. This one looked to be incognito, as much as he could be, with the whole sunglasses, hat, and dressed down in more locally appropriate clothes. It made sense, Tim supposed, that Bruce would be doing his own undercover work at this stage in the game. Sending a recovering twelve year old was just a recipe for disaster. Though Dick might be away at the moment on his assassin internship, Tim wasn’t really sure. Damn their early poor record keeping. Understanding didn’t mean Tim was happy about getting caught up in it.

At least here and now Tim could pretend not to know him. Odds weren’t great of that being an actual deterrent, but Tim could at least try.

“Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Tim muttered, avoiding eye contact and hunching his shoulders to look smaller. If he could subtly attract attention to them, Bruce might be forced to give it up or risk blowing his cover. So, pitiful teenager being accosted by a strange adult man it was.

“I have a great memory for faces, not so much for names, but even I’d have to be an idiot to forget how stressed you looked the other day. It’s great to see you’re feeling better, Alvin.” Blindingly bright, plastic smile activated. And a complete disregard for how creepy it ought to be that he knew Tim’s ‘name’ given he hadn’t exactly introduced himself in the clinic.

Hands shoved in his pockets, Tim did his best to subtly shake off the hand still holding him in place. “I was fine then, and I’m fine now. Just needed some rest. And to be left alone by people I don’t know.”

“I know it’s a little unorthodox, but I couldn’t help being worried about you!” Bruce was at least doing a good job of seeming genuinely distressed, but Tim was more annoyed by the ease with which he was deflecting attention from the rest of the poor bastards stuck in this line. “I know your parents aren’t in the picture, and it’s never easy to find a place for yourself once you leave foster care. I just wanted to check and see if there was anything I could do to help.”

Ugh, buried under the gross invasion of privacy that really did sound like legitimate concern. If Tim wasn’t a lying liar who’s entire life was currently based on lies, he might feel a little bit bad about stressing Bruce out over someone who didn’t actually need his help. As it was, he was starting to debate the merits of just leaving and coming back to investigate tomorrow. Or tonight. Or anytime that was not right this second so he could not be dealing with this right now.

“No, I don’t need your help. I’m fine,” Tim snapped.

Bruce’s hands came up, clearly trying to placate him. “Let me just treat you to coffee and you can reassure an old man’s concerns.”

“You’re not old, you’re in your mid-twenties.” Tim squinted at him suspiciously. How old did Bruce think he was, anyways? He had clearly looked into his ‘background,’ so he must be aware that Alvin Draper was legally nineteen. At this point in the timeline they were only about six years apart in age.

That hadn’t been a joke, but Bruce laughed like it was anyways. “Gee thanks, sport. Glad to hear I have a few years left. But really. Just give me a couple hours of your time to make sure you’re alright.”

Tim was supposed to say no. He was here for a reason, the longer whatever this place was doing was left unchecked, the more likely someone was going to get hurt. He also couldn’t afford for Bruce to get too familiar with him, or he’d be putting the whole time stream at risk.

“Fine, but I’m getting something expensive because I know you can afford it.” Tim was an idiot. An idiot who missed his dad. Maybe he could come back tomorrow to be a snoop and take today to do preliminary recon.

Bruce beamed and Tim quashed down the part of him that longed to reach out and hug him.

This was definitely a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has, once again, been a hot minute since I've posted anything. My apologies, but also these things happen? And I've once again been scattering my writing across so many projects I'm basically not finishing anything at the moment. Hence why this chapter is a touch shorter than normal. But hey! Plot! Sort of.
> 
> Bruce wasn't supposed to be here, but Captain Paranoia wouldn't leave so now we have a truly hijinxical situation on our hands. Curses :p 
> 
> In a self indulgent plug, I'm still working on that podcast, and the episode going out this Wednesday is one we did on Batgirl at like midnight. We did one on cinematic Batmen through the ages which you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsdLXTTr46Q and we've started doing livestreams on Thursdays at around 7 MST here: https://www.twitch.tv/nerdcrusade
> 
> And now that I've finished being a shameless self-promoter, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and that you're all continuing to be safe <3


	13. Chapter 13

As the line slowly inched forwards, Tim did his best to block Bruce’s attempts at conversation. 

Bruce wasn’t making it easy for him, though.

“You left in quite the rush the other day, didn’t even stop to say goodbye. Were you off to something in particular?” His tone was jovial, but Tim had been in this game too long to be anything but blatantly suspicious at the immediate interrogation. He was pointedly not thinking about the way every word out of Bruce’s mouth felt like a blow to his chest. 

“I had to pick up my prescription. The sooner the better,” Tim answered tersely. Give a nice, neat, and complete answer. Don’t dodge the question, but don’t give enough for a proper discussion either. He could get through this.

Bruce’s grin didn’t budge at the stonewalling. “Excellent! It’s great to hear you’re taking care of yourself. Doc Leslie is very good at her job, so as long as you’re following her advice, you can be sure you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

Tim just hummed, stifling a laugh at the hypocrisy in Bruce encouraging someone to follow medical advice.

“I’ll admit to being curious on how you managed to get so sick in the first place. Whatever happened must have been nasty to so thoroughly put down a strong young man like yourself.” And there was the next prod. Not even trying to be subtle. Tim  _ knew _ Bruce could do better than this, so the real question became; why did Bruce want ‘Alvin’ to be aware of his interest in his well-being?

Maybe he thought Tim was involved with some kind of criminal activity here in the Alley. Sick to his stomach, Tim had to admit he wouldn’t be wrong. 

“Got unlucky with a broken pipe. Didn’t heal well. It happens,” Tim shrugged. Clipped sentences were the way to go, if only because Tim wasn’t actually totally confident his voice wasn’t going to break. Not when he was thinking that maybe Bruce was pretending to care about him to get some kind of information from him.

On the other hand, maybe a little bit of vulnerability would spook Bruce into leaving him alone.

Decisions, decisions.

Bruce’s gaze raked up and down him quickly, no doubt looking for the injury responsible, sharper than ‘Brucie’ had any right to be. Come to think of it, other than the speech mannerisms and the blatant disregard for personal boundaries, Bruce was barely playing the persona at all. He certainly hadn’t been in the clinic, though that had likely been more involuntary than this. This instance couldn’t have been planned, Tim was too careful these days for that, but there was the hint of something calculated to the way Bruce was holding himself. He was clearly trying to convey  _ something _ , leaning in ever so slightly, angled towards Tim, but maintaining at least a little distance since Tim denied his touch. 

“Sounds pretty unpleasant, sport. With your medical history, you’ve gotta keep an eye on even small injuries. Or get someone who can keep an eye for you. Who knows what could sneak up on you otherwise?”

Presence, Tim decided. Bruce was trying to assert his presence as non-threateningly as possible. But that just spiraled back to his earlier question; why was Bruce doing this? What was he hoping to achieve?

The line moved again, finally inside the shop proper, and Tim quickly took stock. Pretty standard layout; a decent number of tables, a somewhat cramped counter with an impressive number of machines behind it, and a chalkboard menu in a mostly-legible scrawl. Nothing immediately suspicious. Tim used the seconds pretending to skim the menu gave him to formulate a response. 

Nearly everything on the menu was some kind of blended, mixed, or otherwise noticeably altered drink. Surprisingly cheap for the amount of work that had to go into each drink, and simple brew coffee or tea were noticeably absent. Suspicious.

Best to be just a little hostile to Bruce’s prodding. “I can look after myself just fine. It’s never been a problem before, and it isn’t a problem now.”

And there, something Tim would normally call a crack in Bruce’s facade, but here and now that didn’t feel like an accurate description. It was the same look Bruce got when Tim had assured him and Alfred that, no he didn’t need a ride to school he could just walk the few blocks to the nearest bus stop and it would be fine. Like he was listening to a child insist they didn’t need help down from a fire escape they were clearly stuck on.

Tim should probably be insulted. Instead he was warm.

But this Bruce was caring about a lie, and Tim could never admit that to him. At least, not unless he managed to get home.

A large vanilla frappe with two shots of espresso and three pumps of raspberry ought to make his point.

“Of course you can, but everyone needs a break sometimes and there’s no shame in building connections or relying on others.”

Tim didn’t bother hiding his scowl at such blatant hypocrisy. This was well before Bruce started allying himself openly with other heroes beyond the occasional Justice League mission when he deemed the need dire enough. “I have as much of a support network as I need.”

At that Bruce raised an eyebrow, arching it over the frame of his sunglasses. “It never hurts to have an extra number to call in case of an emergency. Just in case.”

There wasn’t a chance in hell Tim would willingly contact the Bruce of this time. Way too risky. And Tim didn’t want the temptation anywhere near him. He couldn’t rely on his not-yet family for help. Not without ruining everything.

Pointedly ignoring him, Tim rattled his sugary monster of an order to the barista, who’s immaculate customer service smile didn’t even twitch as he turned to Bruce, once again looming over Tim like an overly-protective bird. “Alright, and for dad?”

“Oh, ha ha, actually-”

“He is  _ not _ my father.”

The barista’s eyes widened at touch at the tight anger Tim hadn’t meant to allow into his sharp reply. He hadn’t meant to say it at all. Who cared if some guy in a coffee shop thought there was some kind of resemblance there? Tim sure shouldn’t. And it wasn’t the barista’s fault Tim so desperately wished he could call this Bruce his dad.

Bruce was eyeing Tim carefully, pulling back a touch to hover slightly left, but spoke to the barista regardless. “Just a regular coffee for me, I’m afraid I probably couldn’t pronounce half of the names you’ve got up there.”

“I’m sorry sir, but we don’t actually offer a plain brew. We have an almond blend that’s fairly close, if you’d prefer to keep it simple?” The barista’s plastic tone was back, and Tim had to respect the professional response, even if there was something just a little too perfect about his cheery apology. Maybe he had just been doing this for a while.

“That’s fine then. How much do I owe you?” Bruce asked, hands twitching once, twice, before pulling out his wallet. Disappointingly, though perhaps Tim should have expected it, he didn’t even flinch at the price, and simply paid quickly before shooing Tim to the side counter to wait.

Tim steadfastly refused to make eye contact.

Instead, he focused on the only other visible employee, flitting from machine to machine and serving drinks at a frankly astonishing rate. They didn’t even seem to be looking towards the cashier, and Tim couldn’t see an order screen. Either they were actually listening, with an amazing memory, and incredible multitasking skills, or something else was going on. 

Or there was just something Tim was missing. God only knew how many clues slipped peoples’ notice because they were overly confident in their own perceptual abilities, and Tim wasn’t going to fool himself into thinking he wasn’t incredibly distracted right now.

Case in point, even though he still wasn’t looking anywhere near Bruce, Tim was painfully aware of him finishing with the cashier and heading his way.

Maybe the cashier had a microphone and the barista had an earpiece?

“Should be just a couple of minutes now. In the meantime, how about you tell me about your work?” Another laugh that may as well have been pulled straight out of soup can. “I don’t think I caught what you do earlier.”

No eye contact. Just keep watching the barista. Tim was no expert on coffee making, but he had a sneaking suspicion some of those machines weren’t working the way they were supposed to. 

“That’d be because I didn’t say what I do for work. I do freelance computer engineering.”

The loom over his shoulder shifted, and Tim could practically see the raised eyebrow asking for elaboration. His mouth was moving before he could curb the instinct.

“I have a little of my own equipment, and my foster sister taught me enough to make myself useful.” No need to mention that Babs’ idea of  _ useful _ involved hacking international government agencies.

“That’s very impressive. Not many people are able to start a business like that by themselves without any connections. Unless your foster sister helped with some contacts?”

As he spoke, Bruce sidled back into his field of vision, clearly trying not to infringe while also looking to get a good look at Tim’s face. So Tim kept himself painfully neutral just to be difficult. Definitely not because otherwise he might be liable to cry. 

Definitely not.

Babs would be maybe fourteen right now, spine intact and wreaking havoc on her teachers and classmates. She might even already be working at that library. It would only be a couple of years until she hit the streets as Batgirl for the first time. Tim couldn’t begin to guess at her hacking abilities just yet, but chances were she was already well on her way to being a force to be reckoned with.

And of course, she had no idea who Tim was. Wouldn’t for years.

Mutely, Tim shook his head. Hopefully Bruce would be sensitive enough not to push.

“Large vanilla frappe with raspberry and espresso and an almond blend for Harry?”

Bruce glanced briefly at Tim before moving to their drinks without a comment, and Tim took the opportunity to claim a small table with a good view of both the exit and the counter. No need to get careless, there was still work to do here.

Tim should have known better than to hope for Bruce’s emotional intelligence.

“Are you no longer in contact with your foster sister then? I would think she had to have been fond of you to teach you enough to sell technical services to others.” He placed the atrocity of a drink in front of Tim, and settled into the only other seat at the table. It should have looked comical, a man of his size in a spindly cafe chair, but somehow he looked utterly at ease, as if he came here every week. 

Had to give him props for trying to set what he must think of as an irresponsible hoodlum at ease. 

Too bad Tim absolutely was  _ not _ interested in being comfortable here. If he got too comfortable, he might let something slip or worse. He might be tempted again to tell Bruce  _ everything _ , despite already resolving to handle this one his own. Batman already  _ had _ a partner, after all.

Not to mention the potential ramifications to the timeline.

Though, speaking of, this conversation really ought to be enough to ping any half-competent monitor of the timestream off that Tim wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

Maybe he should consider packing.

Tim took a sip of his frappe to buy some time, and it was exactly as tooth-rottingly sweet as he’d expected. Lovely. But hey, maybe it was time for a good ol’ redirection. “Why’d you tell them your name was Harry, when we both know that’s not true, Mr. Wayne?”

Bruce didn’t actually grimace, but Tim was more than familiar with the slight tick in his jaw that meant he wanted to. “I’m sure you can imagine I don’t always want to attract attention to myself. Today I was just hoping to get a personal taste of what I’ve been told is the best coffee in town.”

It was becoming rapidly clear Tim should have gotten something a little simpler, because there was just no way to tell if there was anything unusual in his drink. He should also probably stop drinking it. Which was a shame since it was actually pretty good.

“But tell me,” Bruce spoke again before Tim had the time to mull over a response to keep himself on the offensive. “Do you have any kind of portfolio I could take a look at? We’re always hiring for bright young minds, and with computers becoming more and more important, we certainly need people like you who actually understand how they work.”

Tim’s mouth went dry. He could say yes. He could take a job at WE, and from there he could keep a closer eye on what Bruce and Dick were up to, and it would give him a more solid income he could invest locally. If he worked hard, he could probably end up in charge of their IT department, which would mean he might even get to keep semi-regular contact with his-

No. That way would only lead to temptation that would end with Tim breaking time. If he took a job at WE, if he put the effort into truly carving out a place for himself in this here and now, he might never be able to bring himself to leave. And sure, he was already considering long term projects and how best to help as many of his people as possible, but this wouldn’t be a personal commitment. This would be a  _ corporate _ commitment that, even when tied to a fake name, would feel like a leash.

But he’d be  _ so close _ .

Tim hesitated, wanting so badly to offer to show Bruce some of his projects and simultaneously wanting to run headlong out of the coffee shop and never look back. 

What settled it wasn’t any logical argument either way; Tim couldn’t help but think about the kids who had turned his apartment into their own crappy escape, and how a steady nine-to-five would force him out of the house for so much longer. He couldn’t leave any of them to fend for themselves; he still hadn’t found something permanent for the girls, who had been sleeping across the hall in Maggie’s, and Luke was over nearly every day. Hell, even Jason was finally putting on enough weight to soften a few of his desperate edges.

He couldn’t step back to go be some white collar asshole again. 

“I’m sorry, I haven’t got anything like that,” Tim finally spoke, and when Bruce looked ready to offer something else Tim cut him off. “And even if I did, I’m not interested. I like working for myself.”

Bruce still looked like he wanted to argue, hands a hair too tight around his mug, but finally he nodded and reached for his pocket. He pulled out a business card and a pen, setting both on the table between them. “I can understand that. However, we do offer contract work on occasion. Could I get at least an email or something so we can send over work that needs an external perspective?”

He could say no. He totally could. He’d already done it once, all he had to do was say it again.

Tim slid the card across the table and snatched up the pen. It was the same one he had used in the clinic.

“If you spam my inbox with anything that’s not contract, I  _ will _ change my professional email just to spite you,” he said tersely, scrawling out the email he’d been directing most clients to. The ones that were securely above board, anyways. Turned out a surprising number of criminals were getting into digital organization these days, and where there were spreadsheets there were at least two people who hated dealing with them.

Who was Tim to turn down an easy-in to their operations?

When Tim looked back up, Bruce was  _ smiling at him _ . Not his media grin, or his professional smile, or even his  _ getting-what-he-wanted _ smirk; it was all quiet amusement and barely upturned lips, and Tim could almost hear him telling him he’d done well tonight and to make sure he finished his homework before bed.

Almost.

And that was his cue to leave, before he did something embarrassing like tear up or tell the truth. Tim shoved himself up, more abruptly than he would have liked, and scooped his drink up. “Thanks for the coffee,  _ Harry _ . Let’s not do this again.”

That got him a laugh, and that little smile ticked another notch wider. “I don’t know about that. I enjoyed this. Stay safe, Alvin.”

Tim turned away sharply, and made a very tactical retreat. He would come back to investigate the cafe in depth later. Right now he had to leave before anything could happen to extinguish the warmth in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hey there people of the internet who I have been thoroughly neglecting for some time now! I'd make excuses about being busy and having the mental capacity of oatmeal most days (both of which are true!), but honestly I've just been all over the place and Bruce is truly a difficult man to write. He just. Wants to dad and keeps trying to derail my story because Tim so badly wants familiarity. The bastard.
> 
> Thankfully, I can sort of avoid him next chapter, probably, or at least avoid him speaking, so at least that won't get in my way! I think. There are a lot of conditionals here for a reason.
> 
> Also, fun fact, we're slowly approaching the one year anniversary of this fic! Which is insane that I'm still working on this because usually my attention span is not this good. It does mean that the sunk cost fallacy is gripping me by the throat, which good news for y'all means I'm that much more likely to actually get to the ending of this damn thing!
> 
> Thanks for all of your patience and lovely comments (that I swear I'll reply to eventually), and I hope you're all staying as safe and healthy as possible!!! Have a great day!!!


	14. Chapter 14

Recon, take two. This time, hopefully, without any deeply uncomfortable conversations and drinks that Tim had later decided were definitely drugged. The question was, what exactly had it been drugged  _ with _ ? Tim hadn’t been able to notice any major discrepancies in his own behaviour, though whether that was because he simply hadn’t drank enough or because the effects were too subtle, he couldn’t say.

At least he’d managed to get some other things done in the aftermath of that mess at the cafe. 

He’d made his rounds with the neighbourhood, had a few  _ very _ awkward conversations with people who weren’t entirely sure they should take him seriously, and had successfully gotten a handful of the locals to agree to supply goods he could stock the safehouses with. Now all he had to do was actually get a location suitable for more than just Gotham’s worryingly large rat population, and the kids would have somewhere to actually spend the night, since they had all been so adamant about never staying long after he fed them.

Tim was starting to wonder if they’d come up with some sort of agreement regarding that. It would both answer some questions, while raising many more.

He’d also managed to identify a good half dozen drug dealers that he was pretty certain he could tail at least one back to a production center some time soon, so even if tonight’s investigation didn’t pan out the way he was hoping, Tim had a respectable Plan B ready to go.

For his night infiltration of the coffee shop, Tim wasn’t committing entirely to the vigilante bit, if only because getting caught in a suit of future tech was still far too dangerous, but he was at least wearing a domino and his body armour once again. He seriously contemplated his cape, before finally passing over it. Even camera footage of a new cape would cause so many problems, there was no way it was worth it. The weather was a touch colder than he would have liked, though painfully standard for Gotham, so Tim doubled up with a jacket and a hoodie. 

It wasn’t like he didn’t have experience hiding bright red-under-black in shadows. It would almost be nostalgic.

Crouching in the shadows on the roof behind the cafe certainly was, the wistful pang deep enough that Tim half expected to feel the shift of shadows behind him. That or there should have been a flicker of darkness across from him as Bruce worked a lock while Tim stood watch.

Tim was so busy waxing poetic about stakeouts and infiltrations long gone, he almost missed the very real movement on the cafe's roof. First a looming shadow and then a smaller, brighter tag-along.

Was Dick already back on the streets? Sure it had been weeks, but his injuries had been nasty. Tim really should have been paying more attention to vigilante movements, but he'd gotten so caught up in his own work he'd forgotten to keep the appropriate tabs. And now, here they were, breaking into the same building Tim had been moments from entering.

If given the chance, they would undoubtedly take most if not all the most pressing evidence, and might even tag some of the equipment with tracers. If this was recon for them too, they might leave enough behind that Tim could use it, but if this was a full bust then odds were low there'd be anything.

Either way, if Batman and Robin were on the case, whoever was behind this was most assuredly going down. Tim wasn't necessary.

He should just walk away now.

But this was still his neighbourhood, people depending on him, and it would give him a leg up in his ongoing operations.

There wasn't time to go over the options in detail, so Tim went with his gut.

He dropped down into the alley, taking care to do so silently and entirely out of Batman's line of sight. Robin might miss him, he was still young after all, but Tim wasn't going to take his chances with the eyes in the back of Batman's head. The roof was out as a means of entry, which meant the odds of Tim triggering an alarm on the way in ticked up, but he wasn't out of options quite yet.

Stepping carefully so as not to disturb the broken glass underfoot, Tim approached the rear access door. Locked, of course, and certainly with something fancier than a cafe in this area ought to be able to afford, but that was just another piece to the growing puzzle of Tim's suspicion.

It wasn't a fair contest; a fancy lock twelve years ago was still a lock from twelve years ago. There may have been a rather clever mechanism to trigger an alarm if a key without what Tim suspected to be plastic lining entered the keyway, but Tim had enough experience with locks that would outright taser an attempted thief, so his tools were very carefully crafted ceramics. No currents running through these and finishing circuits tonight, thanks.

Once he was certain he wasn't going to set off anything electronic, the lock itself was nothing special; just a standard five pin with two spools. Only a step above child's play, probably to keep the literal children around out.

Tim entered quickly, well aware he was on a very _ , very _ short time limit. He had maybe two minutes before Batman and Robin were inside, and from there it would be a race to get out with whatever he could get his hands on before they saw him and inevitably chased him halfway across the city. Given the opportunity, they might even catch him. Tim may be used to racing Nightwing, who really had only gotten more efficient at flying with every year, but he was also used to an older Batman, and while his Bruce had never been  _ slow,  _ Tim would be a fool to discount the possibility that younger meant faster. So it would be pursuit by a faster, unknown Batman and a small child that had almost no concept of his own safety once he got in the air.

Best to avoid that entirely.

In the interest of time, Tim beelined straight behind the counter, following his gut suspicion that there had to be something under the main facade. While there was nothing immediately suspicious, no obvious trap doors at least, some of the syrups were... Not quite the colours Tim would have expected. And the consistency of the sugar was irregular, almost as if it had been poorly ground or it was composed of more than one substance...

Tim took samples of almost everything and moved on, the timer in his head already warning him of how little time he had.

To the back, passed the one bathroom, through the 'Employees Only' door. It may have been locked, but Tim didn't even bother with proper picking, raking it open in a couple of seconds and moving on.

Boxes; probably supplies, though unlabelled.

Cleaners; bought in bulk apparently.

A mop and bucket; kind of gross if Tim was being honest, had probably been sitting with the same water for at least a week.

Stairs; bingo.

Tim was down like a shot, trying to keep as quiet as he could, but more concerned with his ever-dwindling time.

At the bottom, three doors.

Eenie, meenie, minie; left. Old habit, starting left and working across, a strategy that had served Tim well for years.

And it didn't fail him now. Inside were stacks of plastic-wrapped boxes and jugs, all conspicuously labelled with warnings. Chemicals, then. Probably sourced from somewhere official-ish, going by all the packaging, though Tim kind of doubted any university worth a damn would sell psilocybin to somewhere selling food.

Unless this place was owned by a parent company that  _ could _ buy that kind of thing...

Food for thought, later.

Tim snapped pictures of labels, took a couple of samples so he could verify the contents, and moved on.

Tick tock.

Middle door next. Locked, raked, opened.

What was even the point of locking a door if your locks were going to suck so badly?

This room wasn't as immediately incriminating, what looked like a coffee drip and a grinder were set up. Tim almost could have believed they were completely innocuous if it wasn't for the very obviously not-coffee powder mixed in with the beans in the grinder that all but disappeared in the grounds in the drip.

So much for almond blend.

Tim took samples and moved on.

What was behind poorly locked door number three?

A jackpot, relatively speaking.

It looked like something straight out of a meth lab, which was concerning for the potential property damage alone, never mind the product itself. Which probably wasn't meth, though Tim couldn't really be sure just yet.

Except, that was, for the very particular shade of green of one of the compounds that was being filtered out.

Fear gas before it was aerosolized. Wonderful.

Tim supposed he should be thankful that didn't seem to have made its way into any of the  beverages just yet. Maybe this was early enough in the timeline Scarecrow hadn't moved to his broader scaled human experiments yet.

The next big thing to look for, then, would be sedatives that could be used to dose patrons to pick up for those  _ smaller _ experiments.

In the back of his head, Tim was picking apart the set-up; what he could use, what he could sell, what should probably be trashed and incinerated for the greater good...

It was first the barest noise over Tim's head that cut off his reverie, and then a bright voice with a probably unheard response. He had overstayed his welcome.

There was no time to do anything about all the doors he had unlocked, and if he could hear them then Batman and Robin were almost certainly on the ground floor.

"Wow Bats, for so much security up top, they didn't even lock their doors!"

Shit.

Tim immediately moved behind the array of chemicals, hoping for the paranoia of criminals to pay off with a secret exit. A tunnel, a ladder, hell Tim would take sewer access as long as it would get him out of here  _ now _ .

...

He shouldn't have jinxed it.

All he had was a man-sized grate in the floor.

Down into the sewers it was, and Tim could only hope that he didn't catch Croc's eye. He was pretty sure Jones was still a full-on cannibal at this point.

Tim grimaced at the texture of the ladder, even through his gloves. Slimy and gritty. Best not to think too hard about whatever it was. He carefully closed the grate behind him, and hoped that Batman and Robin would be occupied enough with the contents of the rooms to give him time to get away.

Luck was, as always, not on his side. Just as it occurred to Tim that he had left the door to the room open, he also remembered just why he had developed his left-first search system; Nightwing always started on the right.

A panicked glance up, and sure enough, peering through the slats was a young Robin, so painfully young with a few still yellowing bruises on his bare arms, surprised, mouth already open to call out.

Tim did the only thing he could think of and opened the grate, hard, slamming it into Robin's face, and dropped the rest of the way into the sewer with a splash.

Gross, but no time. Batman would have heard Robin's cry of pain and was probably already behind him.

Split second debate over turning on a light, before Tim dismissed it and stepped farther into the shadows cast by the slight light from above instead. He was familiar enough with Gotham's sewers to make it out of sightlines in the dark, and from there he could fiddle and check if the domino he was wearing was one of the ones with night vision or not. If he was lucky, he'd be able to use the cover of the darkness all the way until he could find an exit.

If not, he'd have to risk the wrath of Bats and Croc alike.

Tim shifted farther from the entrance to the left, taking care not to disturb the water(?) too much, just in time for a large black shape to drop, followed immediately by a smaller one, wrapped in yellow.

He barely dared to breathe, each movement careful as he ducked into a debris alcove. Running would only get him caught. He couldn't outrun them in a straight-way.

_ Click. _

Sounded like Batman had decided to err on the side of flashlights. Not good right now, but it meant they didn't have night vision tech, and that was information Tim could  _ use _ . Assuming he didn't get dragged out into the light in the next thirty seconds.

There were two paths, one going either direction away from the ladder. Bruce was unlikely to let Dick go anywhere alone within months of the Two-Face incident, but Dick might force the issue of splitting up.

Or he might take point and lead them to the right.

Let Robin take them right.

"Which way?" Dick's voice, serious and a little thick (Tim had probably hit his nose, hopefully he hadn't broken it).

"They could have gone either direction, where does your gut tell you to look?" There was anger in Batman's voice, but also a softness. He was using this as a teaching moment, and if Tim wasn't careful he would end up the lesson.

But, more importantly, it sounded like they were going to stick together.

Tim pressed the back of his head against the grimy bricks, fighting the urge to tense up and risk making a sound.

Just a little longer, and he could go back up into the cafe and head out.  


"This way!" And Dick was off, splashing through the water  _ away _ from Tim's hiding spot. Not a second later, there was more movement.

Tim dared to peak around the corner, and sure enough the lights were retreating, quickly disappearing around a corner.

He didn't sigh in relief, but it was a near thing, and Tim let himself relax back into the brick, eyes slipping closed behind his domino.

His relief was ripped apart by the barest sound of water slicking off of scales, replaced by a stone of old terror deep in his belly.

"What do we have here, a little rat hiding from Bats?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. One month and a bit is definitely better than the two+ there was between updates last. I actually wrote most of this in one sitting today and have barely edited, so there'll probably be some editing somewhere down the line, but who knows. Definitely not me, that's for sure.
> 
> In other news, university online continues to feel fake but I am trying very hard to still do things for it, and the weird podcast is still trying to eat more of my time and I keep beating it back with a broom. This weeks episode was on Soul Eater! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtHfQrzIkNU
> 
> This chapter was fun! Tim trying to speedrun an investigation with limited success, and also sprinklings of angst. Things were admittedly shorter than normal, but I think that cliffhanger is fun, and will not be persuaded to go farther in this chapter :p
> 
> Thanks for dropping by and reading, I hope you're all staying safe and healthy as the world continues to threaten to combust, and that you, the person reading this specifically, have a wonderful day <3


	15. Chapter 15

This was still salvageable. All Tim had to do was think fast, or be faced with a likely very pointy and unpleasant end. No pressure.

Tim's mouth was moving before he had anything resembling a plan."I dunno about rat. At worst I'm like. A statistically unlikely frog. Historically speaking, I'm probably a bird, though."

The shifting darkness in front of him pulled apart a foot and a half or so above eye level, revealing a glint of teeth. Please let it be humour and not a threat display. Of course, with Jones there was no reason it couldn't be both.

"Rat, frog, bird, doesn't really matter. Either way you ought to know better than to come wandering around _ my _ sewers." Tim could feel the timbre of his voice in his bones, and he spared half a thought for a quick worry about Batman and Robin hearing their exchange. Thirty seconds away wasn't all that far, and for better or for worse the acoustics down here were pretty incredible.

He raised his hands, letting one brush against his mask and _ yes _ there was the nightvision. Now he could see his possibly imminent death in thematically appropriate green. Wonderful. Though Jones didn't _ look _ particularly hungry...

"Not wandering, just poking my head in, misdirecting the Bat so I can go about my business. I'll be out of your metaphorical hair in no time." Tim braced a foot against the wall behind him, preparing to launch himself at a moment's notice. If this turned into a fight he was going to need every second he could get.

That grin widened, reptilian eyes flicking up and down, and Tim kind of regretted being able to see all the strands of whatever-that-was stuck between his teeth. It made sense that Jones didn't exactly brush his teeth often, but how comfortable could that be?

"I'm not worried about getting you out of 'my hair,'" oh god there were air quotes. "I'm more concerned about getting you out of my teeth later." And that was Tim's cue to get moving or get dead.

He jumped and pushed off the wall hard, forward and _ up _, raised hands landing on Jones long enough to vault over him and twist around before his landing. Giving Jones his back was a great way to end up covered in inch-deep claw marks.

Jones roared at the contact, swiping clumsily at Tim even as he moved and lashing backwards with his tail before turning to face him, just a little off-balance.

That was odd. He was normally faster than that, and Tim's weight should have been nothing to him, especially not for such a short amount of time.

Duck, duck, sidestep, and yes Tim could see a weird tension to his movements and normally by now Jones ought to have dropped down to lunge and he _ hadn't _.

Well, well, well, Waylon. How did you manage to get outright injured?

Whatever it was, Tim was fairly certain it was on his back, which meant that was where he had to get to if he wanted any chance at surviving this fight. Maybe he could hit him hard enough to get up the ladder and out of here before he recovered.

Time for something stupid then, relying on Jones' apparent unwillingness to bend over.

A hard slide through grimy water and between Jones' legs, catching the edge of a stomp to his open jacket- fuck, rotate out of it, grab a sleeve and wrap the whole thing around the foot and _ yank _.

Unsurprisingly, Jones didn't fall, but he _ did _ stumble, and that gave Tim the second he needed to get back to his feet, and it bought him a moment of distraction to see the damage.

_Ouch _.

Jones' back was torn open and dripping, a length of tangled barbed wire pressed deep into his skin and tearing it apart with each movement. What of the flesh Tim could see was slick and inflamed, and the scales were flaking off in bloody chunks.

Damn. Tim couldn't leave him like this.

New plan: get the wire out and _ run like the Dickens _ before Jones recovered enough to maul him. Jones had always healed almost suspiciously well, and could take it from there.

Easier said than done.

Another lash of a tail nearly cracked Tim’s ribs, would have if he hadn’t dropped down under the swing but it put him in a poor position to dodge the next strike. Two armed block and _ twist _ to glance the blow off without breaking both arms. The bruises and scratches were Future Tim’s problem.

A roll through murky water got Tim enough breathing room to rise again, and then it was a very frustrating game of trying to get behind Jones while Jones was doing his best to disembowel Tim. 

Probably not one for family game night, that one. 

  
  


Speaking of _ family _, Tim could hear footsteps splashing closer, which meant his window for getting through this without getting arrested was rapidly closing. Time for something reckless then.

Tim pulled one of his precious few throwing discs from his belt and switched off his nightvision. It’s not like he’d be needing his eyes for this next bit anyways.

He thumbed first the timed self-destruct (no evidence), and then the deadman’s trigger flashbang. 

Closed his eyes.

And pitched it straight at Jones’ rumbling throat.

The howl of pain was immediate, the light piercing even through Tim’s eyelids, and he was moving.

Skidded right, ducked the flailing, opened his eyes and _ there _, one end of the wire. Tim wrapped a hand around the end, the wire pricking at his leather-clad palms, and booked it for the ladder.

Jones’ cry turned to a scream as the wire ripped loose, but there was no sound of pursuit, just those footsteps, nearly on them now.

Once there was no more resistance from the wire, about three rungs from the exit, Tim dropped it into the water below. No need to be dragging around bloody barbed wire, it would only raise questions.

Up the stairs, out the back door he had entered through, and then Tim hesitated. Roof or street? Sure _ he’d _ feel better once he got off of street level, but was that actually the best way to disappear? With just the now very dirty hoodie, if he ditched the domino he’d blend right in for Crime Alley’s nightlife. And if he were to get caught on the rooftops that would be incredibly telling. He also now needed to find a different source for his lab equipment if he wanted to keep his timeline for getting the medical system up and running.

New time, new tactics. 

Decision made, Tim peeled off the domino, tugged up his hood, and stepped out onto the street to track down a drug lab.

\--

Annoyingly, his second foray into creative resource acquisition went off without a hitch. 

One he was sure he had lost the Bats, Tim had found one of the dealers he had pegged, trailed him for the evening, and swapped off to follow the guy who had conspicuously handed him a rather hefty looking backpack. Then he followed that guy back to a warehouse just shy of the docks, in which, surprise surprise, there was packaging and pill-making with materials too visibly fresh to have come from anywhere off property.

After that it was just a matter of slipping his domino back on, taking out guards without being seen, and offering the floor techs a deal; they could tell him who they worked for and keep working here, using new recipes with supplies that would start coming in three weeks time, or he could personally put down every single one of them and tip off the cops to what exactly they’d been getting up to here.

The first reaction had been a scoff, so Tim had pulled an experimental ace; the pistol he had taken from the trafficker. He had no intention of _ using _ it, but they didn’t have to know that. 

Even that hadn’t gotten _ quite _ what he was looking for until Tim put a bullet in one of the lights, the sparks glancing across the blood on his hands still dripping from wounds hidden up his sleeves. Shout out to neuroticism that pushed Tim to train with any weapon he could get his hands on. Still, he had picked a near one just to be sure he could actually hit the damn thing.

Would have been pretty embarrassing to miss.

The display was enough to get at least grudging compliance, though Tim was certainly going to have to check up on them regularly to ensure they were sticking to the deal. At least until he dealt with their previous employer and could prove his system worked, at which point hopefully most of them would accept the income for what it was.

Thinking on it, Tim might have to put someone in charge who would ensure that no funny business went on. That ought to be a fun recruitment conversation.

In the meantime, Tim now had a hard timeline on acquiring recipes and supplies, and the name of a local drug lord who probably had the connections and resources Tim needed. Surely he'd be up to sharing, for the greater good of the community. And if he wasn't, well Tim was getting a knack for persuasion.

By the time Tim headed home, the sun was starting to stain the smog a burnt orange and his mind was whirling. If the drug lord didn't pan out he needed as back up. Maybe Ivy would be amenable? What could he offer her in exchange for a steady stream of otherwise expensive compounds? Maybe a park?

And he should also really finalize that starting capital, and his cursory poking at Cobblepot's digital system suggested he was as shrewd as ever and likely still kept the majority of his wealth either physically in the Iceberg Lounge or in a variety of liquid investments that couldn't be easily siphoned. Sneaky bastard.

Looked like Tim was going to have to carry out some more breaking and entering if he wanted to get at that money. Selina would be so proud.

Caught up in planning not just an infiltration but a full on _ heist _, Tim was almost completely unprepared for one of the manholes in front of him to burst from the ground at skull-cracking speeds. Reflexes had him ducking rather than being decapitated, and then he was face to face with Waylon Jones for the second time in one day.

Fuck.

"You," he panted, pointing one clawed hand at him.

Tim nodded, sliding into a more mobile stance. If he could get to the rooftops, Jones couldn't follow but the property damage in his wake would be more than most of the locals could afford. "Me. What can I do for you?"

Jones' lip curled back off his teeth, and Tim honestly couldn't say if it was a snarl or a smile. "Why did you pull out the wire?"

What kind of question was that? That injury was _ nasty _, and there was no excuse for leaving someone in that kind of pain. So Tim shrugged and said as much. No point lying, not about this.

Jones stared at him, dripping slowly onto the cracked pavement.

Running still wasn't out of the question, but it didn't look like Jones was angry anymore. Hopefully that was a good sign, though Tim couldn't help thinking of innocuous logs that ripped the throats out of unsuspecting swimmers.

"Would you be willing to clean it out?" Jones asked quietly, shoulders as hunched as they could be without likely aggravating his back more.

Tim was speechless, for just a moment. But that moment was enough for Jones' posture to tighten.

"I can't reach all that much back there, and if I don't clean them out soon they'll get infected and the next three weeks will _ hurt _ like a bitch.” Jones’ jaw was working with enough force to splinter steel.

The stupid cut on Tim's arm, now fully healed, twinged in sympathy. Infections were the _ worst. _

"Yeah I can help. Do you have somewhere specific you'd like to do this, or does it matter to you?" Tim asked, already running through locations in his head. No way could he bring Jones back to his apartment, but maybe one of the safehouses? Tim was pretty sure the one off 173rd had running water, and between his belt and possibly a pharmacy run that would cover at least basic supplies.

Shit, did Jones’s condition include any kind of immunity or circulation issues? Tim knew ichthyosis was normally a genetic and dermal issue, but it wasn’t like this was exactly a normal case. Had Jones undergone any further genetic manipulation yet? Should Tim treat this like a veterinary issue? If that was the case, was Jones more like a lizard or a dinosaur?

The things that having a shape-shifting teammate forced Tim to learn. First aid for tyrannosaurus rexes. If he ever saw Gar again, Tim might just have to thank him. 

Mind, even if Tim were to treat this as strictly unusual human medical care, he still couldn’t be sure if it was safe to suture which is what his instincts said to do with lacerations of this size. Wasn’t the layer underneath the scaly dermis incredibly sensitive and vulnerable to external influences? Knowing Tim’s luck, the medical thread would tear right through and just complicate the issue.

“If you have somewhere safe, we can go there. Though if this is a trap I’ll rip your throat out and eat your liver.” Jones interrupted Tim’s train of thought. Right, Tim could probably just ask and hopefully Jones would know the best way to approach this.

Tim hummed thoughtfully. “I think I know a place that’ll work. If you’ll follow me?”

Jones grunted in acknowledgement and Tim began heading towards the only safehouse with running water he wouldn’t mind Jones knowing about. While it made Tim’s skin crawl to have him at his back, he _ was _ asking for a lot of trust here. It was the least he could do.

That, and with how slow Jones was, presumably from blood loss, Tim figured his odds of escape were okay as long as he heard the first blow coming.

“Do you know if your skin is safe to suture, because if it is I’d like to pick up some supplies to do that,” he asked, keeping his eyes forward, even as he’d prefer to try and gauge Jones’ response. Probably best _ not _ to unnecessarily antagonize the injured cannibal.

A growl that was definitely not a positive noise. “No stitches. I won’t be able to take them out myself, even if you can find a needle that’ll get through my skin. I heal fast anyway. Just clean out the sewage and metal shavings I can still feel in there. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Huh. If that was all he had to do, this would almost be _ easy _. Though Tim couldn’t help running through ways he could still help. He didn’t feel good about leaving those gashes wide open, especially since the severity was partially his fault. 

Maybe strategic application of duct tape would do the trick. It was the least he could do.

Hopefully Jones would be amenable.

Ahead of them, someone opened the door to a convenience store, took one look at Tim and Jones making their way down the street, and slammed it closed again. Wonderful, that surely wouldn't impact his incredibly weird relationship with the locals any.

He'd probably have to send the kids out for some damage control later.

In the meantime, they managed to arrive at the admittedly still kind of run down old office that was a little over halfway finished with its repairs. The structural stuff and most of the plumbing had been handled, and Tim was in the middle of sorting out its electricals and security measures. He was still unsure of a lot of the cameras’ placements, and he was planning on running a few of them past the chipmunks before finalizing anything. There were a lot of fine lines to walk with this project, after all.

But the best part of this particular stage of incomplete construction meant there were still all kinds of tape lying around, but most of the plaster dust had been cleaned up.

Hmm. Electrical tape would probably have more stretch than duct tape, but it didn't really have the holding power. Decisions, decisions.

Jones looked around the property quietly, taking in the exposed wiring and various (stolen) tools lying around. He sat in the middle of the room where Tim indicated, while he went and disinfected with spray from his belt then filled up one of the buckets and grabbed some wipes from the first aid kit he kept here in case of chipmunk accidents. He'd have to use the tweezers from his belt, because there was absolutely no way Tim was going to use literal construction tools for medical care if he had any other choice, and the tweezers in the kit were too small.

To say Jones was a _ good _ patient would be a lie, but he didn't move _ too _ much. There was only a shiver at the first pour of water, and he stayed relatively still as Tim carefully wiped off the worst of the remaining muck. Jones twitched nearly every time Tim pulled one of the nastier metal shards or stones out, but Tim couldn't exactly blame him. Frankly he was still fairly impressed at the general lack of movement.

He wouldn't have imagined Jones had that much self control, honestly.

Once he got what debris he could out, Tim rinsed the injuries another few times, retreating to the sink to fill the bucket twice.

That was the easy bit.

"I have some disinfectant here, if I spray it on your back are you going to rip my face off?" Tim asked, breaking the nearly meditative silence they had fallen into without him noticing.

Another twitch from Jones, maybe he hadn't been expecting Tim to ask. "Based on what I know floats around down there, do it."

Tim nodded, before remembering he was firmly behind Jones. "Okay, on the count of three then. One, two," Normally Tim would have sprayed there, but sitting here cross-legged behind Jones was not a particularly good defensive position, so he opted for the side of survival. "Three."

Sure enough, Jones tensed just before the application, but at least for this it didn't really matter. Tim was thorough, because he _ also _ knew the kinds of things that could be found in Gotham's sewers, and the idea of any of that getting into someone's body was flatly upsetting.

And it was time to push his luck a second time. "I'm also not super comfortable leaving these wide open, even if you say it'll be fine. I know you said no to stitches, but I do have some tape here that ought to be able to hold them closed at least for a while."

"Medical tape doesn't stick to my skin well, kid," Jones scoffed, still a little tight but calmer than Tim had heard him yet.

Tim let himself smile a little, since there was no way Jones could see it. "I wasn't actually offering medical tape. It's a little unorthodox, but I have some duct tape here I can disinfect that ought to do the job. Ideally you'd remove it carefully and flush the wounds periodically for the next couple of days, but I get that doing that by yourself for back injuries can suck."

Jones twisted around and stared at Tim, who wiped the smile from his face. There was always something a little unsettling about his eyes, the way they didn't quite fit his face, but this time there was something searching in the discrepancy. His nostrils flared like he would be able to smell the truth.

"How did you fuck up your back that bad?" he asked.

Tim blinked, but tried not to let his surprise show otherwise. He hadn't really expected a lot of personal inquiries here. Careful to match cadence, just a touch, he replied. "A handful of ways over the years. The worst was probably when I got caught trying to get away from an explosion and ended up burning my back to shit."

There was the distinct noise of clawed fingers tapping against scaled skin, and Jones stared at him.

"Who do you work for?"

Another curve ball. Did Jones think someone was paying him to do this?

“These days? No one,” Tim answered honestly. 

Jones made a noise that was somehow both a hum and a growl. Gotta respect the versatility of his vocal chords, apparently. 

“Tape me up, then.”

Determined not to overthink whatever that had been about, Tim complied, carefully lining up the edges of the wounds as best he could and taping them shut. It wouldn’t hold if Jones went swimming or swinging around, but Tim kind of doubted he’d be doing too much of that anyways. 

Optimism.

Once he was finished, Tim backed off, heading to the sink to wash his hands. Behind him, he heard Jones stand, and Tim resolutely did not turn around. The heavy footsteps retreated, the sound of the door opening and a slight grunt as Jones stopped slightly to fit through, and then Tim was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? A chapter? That's kinda long because I'm A Fool who couldn't stop rambling? Why yes, it's entirely possible! In this case, you can thank my stupid rubric-less sociology paper for getting me writing and then immediately losing my interest during a sprint so I worked on this instead. Fanfic wins again, I guess.
> 
> In my defense on the length of this chapter, I wanted to get the Croc First Aid done here, but I couldn't decide how to go about it for ages. Lizards are cold blooded so you sometimes use heatpacks to draw out fluids and crap, does that apply here? Lower layers of icthosyotic skin is super sensitive but there's like one singular article on how it heals from abrasions and shit, so I have no idea if sutures would work. I have so many questions. Thus cleaning and duct tape it had to be!
> 
> Next chapter may be a while with the holidays about to hit me with a sledgehammer, but then again maybe without the classwork for a couple of weeks I'll manage to get something out, we'll have to see. At least I'm done most of my Christmas shopping.
> 
> Thank you all for both the patience and for reading, and I hope you stay safe and have a great day!!<3

**Author's Note:**

> It's happening, and my life is spiraling out of control. At least I'm posting regularly(ish). University, though. Is unimpressed with me. My second round of midterms approaches and I may vanish for a while, we'll see.
> 
> I've been thinking about this AU for an embarrassingly long time, so I am very pleased to get something out for it. Where is it going, well I'm not trying to be subtle, but I'm also not giving the game away yet. Soon. 
> 
> Once again, many thanks to ReplacementRobin for talking shop with me, and Capes and Coffee for keeping me generally on topic.
> 
> Please do leave a comment, or kudos, or even just think positive thoughts at me if you liked it. Everything is appreciated :)


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